Assorted DW100 Drabbles
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: A collection of various unconnected 100 word drabbles written for the Doctor Who fandom. Multiple characters or pairings, ratings and genres.
1. Doctor and Donna Relationship Drabbles

Author's Notes: This is a collection of all the 100 word drabbles I've written for the dw100 community on LJ that don't fit into my 'Doctor and Rose Tyler Drabbles' collection that's already posted here. These drabbles are all individual, self-contained stories and do not necessarily relate to each other in any way. The collection contains drabbles featuring assorted characters (including everything from pure gen through to multi-partner), ratings and genres. **Please take note of the ratings and warnings in each individual header**, as some of these drabbles touch on dark subject matter.

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><p><strong>Doctor and Donna Relationship Drabbles<strong> (everything focused on the Doctor and Donna as a pair, including both het and gen)

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><p>Title: Beyond What She Was Looking For<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 266: Stickle. Set during Season 4.<p>

Donna was constantly sniping at the Doctor. Sometimes it was friendly banter, which he'd bat aside with a joke. Sometimes, though, it was during situations when she really didn't agree with him. In those cases, no matter how much shouting was involved or how annoyed her words made him, the Doctor never just ignored her angry jibes or her heartfelt rants. Instead, he actually considered her point.

She'd been looking for a relationship like that forever.

She'd never consider him as a husband, of course, but she was still going to spend the rest of her life with that man.

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><p>Title: Not Your Colour<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 237: Hedge. Set during Season 4.<p>

"That top is ruined, I'll have you know. Next time we go somewhere there's shops, you're buying me a new one."

The Doctor sighed. "Donna, you got that out of the TARDIS wardrobe room, so technically the shirt was mine, anyway."

Donna sniffed. "Yeah, well, it wasn't exactly your colour, so I found it a better home."

"I'm sorry, all right?"

"You yanked me into a hedge!" Donna accused, still pulling sticks out of her tangled hair.

"Would you rather have been caught?"

"Compared to ruining a perfectly good mohair sweater? Yeah, I think I would've."

"Humans," the Doctor muttered.

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><p>Title: Hugger-Mugger<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 224: Hugger-Mugger. Set after 'Journey's End'.<p>

"Oi!" Donna Noble squawked when someone grabbed her on the street. She whacked at the stranger's shoulder. "Get off!"

The man let her go and backed away, holding his hands up entreatingly. Donna grabbed for her bag to make sure it was still there, and still closed so that nothing could have been taken.

He hadn't robbed her. So what...

"I'm so sorry," the man said. "You just looked like you needed a hug."

Donna blinked as the man grinned at her and just walked away, his long brown coat flapping.

Nutter, she thought.

She wondered why he looked familiar.

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><p>Title: Part-Time Lord, Part-Human<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten II/Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 205: Footwear. Goes AU from 'Journey's End'.<p>

They're practically the same person now. It should be incredibly wrong. Somehow, though, it's not. They both understand each other more than anyone else in the universe could. She's part-Time Lord, and he's part-human. They fit. It makes sense.

It's a discussion about shoe shopping that tips him off that something's different. He doesn't mind the idea of it anymore, and he realises that that's her influence.

He's different because of her. He's more suited to her.

He's always loved Donna, but this is different. Now he looks at her and sees her for what she is.

Perfect for him.

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><p>Title: A Special Brand of Boredom<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 186: Ennui. Set during in Season 4.<p>

"We could go watch the rain of asteroids through the atmospheric shell of Jufessa. Or stop by the revolution of Ethiogeria in the year 90,807. Or we could change the console room lighting, and even _that _would be a better, more interesting way to spend our time than this."

Donna was surprised the Doctor didn't just plonk himself down in a sulk and whine, "I'm _bored_!" like a five year old. He seemed the type.

But this was a first time she'd had a chance to go shoe-shopping in _months_, and she wasn't letting some hyperactive Time Lord ruin it.

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><p>Title: Not the Sort to Dwell on Things<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 170: Familiar. Set during 'Journey's End'.<p>

Donna isn't the sort to dwell on things. So she misses some big crisis because she's off having her nails done or something. Big deal. She just figures that everyone's making it up anyway. Like now. She would've noticed planets in the sky, thanks. She was only having a _nap_.

When a man called John Smith introduces himself and she glances up, she _could _pause and wonder why he seems familiar. But she doesn't overthink it. She just figures her Mum's probably had him 'round before.

Once he's left, it takes her less than twenty seconds to completely forget him.

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><p>Title: When She Says Never Ever<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten/Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 166: Bluster. Set during Season 4.<p>

She's said she'll never _ever _consider him that way so many times that he wonders what's wrong with him. He knows he's attractive, and he's not so alien that they're incompatible.

He doesn't always understand humans. One thing he does understand, though, is pure bluster. He's been known to spout a bit of that himself.

When she says never ever, he recognises that she really means she's too worried it will ruin what they have to ever try. She doesn't want to risk not staying with him forever.

Either way, she can't, so he doesn't try to change her mind.

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><p>Title: A Losing Battle<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 164: Confabulate. Set during Season 4.<p>

"Tell me about your people," Donna said.

The Doctor was quick to brush her off. "We're going to see the Singing Hills of Mount Catabora," he said, fake cheer filling his voice. "Much more interesting than chatting about stuffy old Time Lords."

"Doctor," Donna said in a warning tone.

"What?" he snapped.

"You talk and talk all the time. But I want to _talk_."

"I never look back."

"Maybe you should."

He'd been through this before with a woman who was far less stubborn. He knew a losing battle when he saw one.

"My planet was called Gallifrey," he began.

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><p>Title: An Icy Grave<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 147: Ice and Snow. Set during 'Planet of the Ood'.<p>

A creature lies dying, and all Donna can think is that no one and nothing should have to spend its last moments in the cold and snow, with complete strangers the only ones to note its passing.

She wants to give it a proper burial at least. Or a cremation. Whatever's appropriate. The Doctor tells her the snow will do its work, building an icy grave of its own accord.

It isn't enough, Donna thinks. Every creature deserves better than dying like this. But when she sees the crimes perpetrated on its kin, she begins to wonder whether 'better' exists.

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><p>Title: Not to Be Discouraged<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 138: Welcome Aboard. Set during 'Partners in Crime'.<p>

The Doctor has invited Donna to come along once before, so it doesn't even occur to her that the offer might have been rescinded. She's been waiting for the Doctor to reappear for over a year now, her life pretty much on hold, and it didn't even occur to her that it might all have been for nothing. He could have said no.

But then, Donna Noble's always been the sort to get her way no matter what. If he hadn't wanted her along, then tough. She would have just pushed him out of the way and made herself welcome.

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><p>Title: Driven Over the Edge<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 125: Nuts. Set during 'The Runaway Bride'.<p>

Donna's decided, after careful consideration and lots of yelling, that he isn't intentionally trying to kidnap or kill her. He's trying to help her, even if he's not particularly good at it.

That doesn't mean that he still might not be the death of her, though.

He's completely barmy. She's never met anyone that insane. Perhaps it's the loss of his friend, or maybe there's something else going on, but he's been driven over the edge.

He asks her to go with him. She can't. His insanity is going to get himself killed. She doesn't want to die with him.

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><p>Title: Atlantis<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 122: Under the Sea.<p>

"Atlantis does _not _exist!" Donna laughed.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "After everything you've seen, you don't believe there could be a complete civilisation under the ocean's surface?"

"Well, maybe," Donna said. "But not on Earth."

"No, not on Earth," the Doctor agreed. "You lot won't be able to create an underwater atmosphere for, oh, twenty-six thousand more years? No, Atlantis is a whole water-based planet light-years from Earth."

"Should I grab a bikini, then?"

The Doctor grinned. "No need for swimming! They've got lifts going down from the surface. Sunscreen would be an idea, though, with your skin."

"Oi!"

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><p>Title: Taking All of the Fun Out of It<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 119: Open and Closed. Set during Season 4.<p>

"Come on, back to the TARDIS!" the Doctor announced suddenly.

"What? That's it?" Donna asked, nonplussed. "You just figured out what was wrong barely two minutes after we stepped out of the TARDIS? We haven't even talked to anyone. We haven't looked around or anything."

"Sorry, don't need to. The answer's obvious," the Doctor shrugged.

"So what?" Donna asked. "No running for our lives?"

"Nope," he assured her. "I can fix the atmospheric disturbance from inside the TARDIS."

Donna was silent for a long moment. Then she grumbled, "The next place you take me better be more exciting than this."

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><p>Title: All Locked Up With Nowhere to Go (Again)<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 112: Here We Go Again.<p>

"This," Donna says, "is the _thirty-first _time we've been imprisoned or sentenced to execution."

The Doctor raises his eyebrows. "You've kept count?"

"I didn't think the count would go so high!" she defends. "I thought it was something funny to tell Grandad. 'I've been to prison six times'. Then it was seven. Then double-digits. Now I'm starting to wonder how high I can count."

"We always get out," the Doctor offers.

Donna scowls. "Next time I'm just going to point the finger at you so _you're _the only one imprisoned. And don't expect me to save you, either. Crazy alien."

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><p>Title: Drinking Challenge<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten, Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 99: 99 Bottles of Beer. Set during Season 4.<p>

The Doctor claims that he doesn't get drunk. He babbles on about superior Time Lord physiology and the inherent weaknesses in the human digestion and circulatory systems for ages before Donna finally shuts him up by issuing a drinking challenge.

The Doctor scoffs, asking her if she's missed all those things he just said. She can't possibly win.

Four hours later he's literally under the table, rolling about slurring drinking songs. Donna empties the water out of her leftover vodka bottle and throws out the empty whiskey bottles the Doctor had favoured.

That would shut him up for a while.

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><p>Title: The Species That is Woman<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 83: Sherlock Holmes. Set during 'The Unicorn and the Wasp'.<p>

"You think you're so Sherlock Holmes, figuring out how all the clues fit together when the average person can't _find_the clues in the first place. But here you are, being shown up by a woman."

"I might think I'm like Holmes in a lot of ways, but unlike him I don't see women as some foreign species." The Doctor paused for a moment, then added. "Well, except when they _are_another species."

Donna rolled her eyes. "Come on then, you ladies' man, don't want to keep Agatha Christie waiting. I can't _wait_until she solves the mystery before you!"

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><p>Title: The Meaning of Silence<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten, Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 73: Silence. Set during 'Silence in the Library'.<p>

Perhaps it's just because this incarnation likes to fill every moment with talking (he's admitted before that he's got a gob, and that hasn't changed). But there's something unsettling about the concept that in an entire planet, filled with ideas and recorded memories, his is the only voice that can be heard. It's a library, yes, and libraries are quiet. But there's a difference between quiet and silence.

Donna doesn't seem worried, but the Doctor knows before he even checks on the computers that they're the only ones on the planet. Because silence, to him, always seems to mean death.

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><p>Title: Things Better Not Remembered<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: PG-13<br>Character/s: Ten/Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 30: Something That Never Happened. Set during Season 4.<p>

The Doctor wants to bury himself under his bedcovers and never come out. The problem is that Donna's still under there as well, and it's her he's currently trying to avoid.

Instead, he swipes his trousers from the floor beside the bed and awkwardly shuffles them on without exposing himself.

It's a little late for that, but still.

"So..." he begins.

"We're never talking about this again," Donna says firmly. "It didn't happen. Now get gone so I can get dressed already."

The Doctor's never been so glad to have his sexual prowess dismissed out of hand in his life.

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><p>Title: Someone To Talk To<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Donna, Wilf  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 7: Confessions. Set during 'The Sontaran Stratagem'.<p>

Donna loves travelling with the Doctor. She'd fiercely regretted her decision to tell him 'no' the first time she met him for a number of reasons.

He's very much an alien, though, and the things they see together are sometimes even more so. He can't always understand how they affect Donna, and there's been no one else to tell. It's not just because they're alone in the TARDIS; even on Earth she doesn't think anyone would believe her.

Then she sees her Grandad down the street, waving and teary, and Donna smiles. Maybe there _is_someone she can talk to.

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><p>Title: Unexpected Distractions From Grief<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 8: Unexpected. Set during 'The Runaway Bride'.<p>

He would appreciate it, he really would, if random people didn't show up unexpectedly in the middle of his grief and rant at him like _he'd _done something wrong. The pain of losing Rose was too fresh for him to deal with that.

Donna Noble gave him little choice, though. She wasn't the sort of woman one could just ignore.

He didn't expect to like her any more than he'd expected her to show up. Nevertheless, for short minutes at a time, he thought of something outside his own pain. For that, he couldn't help but love her a little.

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><p>Title: Kisses Across Time and Space<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: PG<br>Character/s: Ten, Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 11: Companions. Set during 'The Unicorn and the Wasp'.<p>

The Doctor has somehow let himself fall into the habit, in recent years, of kissing his companions, and even his not-yet companions. Up until this very moment, those kisses have always unfortunately come to define those relationships.

Kissing Rose on the Game Station led to the making of this body, perfectly tailored to her and always longing for her. Reinette's kiss gave her power over him. Kissing Martha made her fall for him, a doomed relationship. Kissing Astrid seemed to seal her fate.

Donna kisses him to save his life. Nothing changes. He finds he likes that about their relationship.


	2. Doctor and Martha Relationship Drabbles

**Doctor and Martha Relationship Drabbles** (everything focused on the Doctor and Martha as a pair, including both het and gen)

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><p>Title: A Superimposed Image<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Martha, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 333: Grievance<p>

It seems as if ten consecutive seconds never go past without the Doctor thinking of Rose. It's all over his face, and in that far-off look in his eyes that has nothing to do with his constant longing to see the stars up close.

Martha can see it all so clearly. She can hardly stand it.

She hates that he looks at her and superimposes another face over hers. Not all the time, no, but certainly often enough that it hurts.

She wants to grab him and force him to _see_her. She doesn't, fearing it would change nothing anyway.

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><p>Title: A Step in the Right Direction<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Ten/Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 240: Game. Goes AU from 'Last of the Time Lords'.<p>

Martha walks a tightrope, but somehow it's not quite stretched in a straight line. The game is to find the correct path without misstepping.

She finds that she falls off a _lot _along the way.

She's been with him for a year, now, and she thinks she's getting better at anticipating the steps. When she stays with him after the Master is killed, she knows she's done something right.

He slides into bed with her and buries himself in her. Even though tomorrow she knows that he'll pretend it didn't happen, it's still the next step in the right direction.

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><p>Title: The Light of Day<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Ten II/alt!Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 217: Wake. Set in Pete's World, post-'Journey's End'.<p>

The Doctor understood many types of guilt, but he'd never quite grasped how someone could have sex and then be horrified by that decision the next morning. He couldn't see how the light of day changed anything.

He woke beside Martha (not even _Martha_, really, but her parallel version), and suddenly understood that regret completely.

He'd never meant for it to happen, or even considered it as a possibility. He'd just been searching for something familiar beyond Rose. She was everything to him; that was the problem.

He'd wanted more. Instead, one mistake might cost him everything he already had.

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><p>Title: A Newer Model<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Martha/Eleven, Martha/Mickey  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 195: Model. Written at some point post-'The End of Time Part Two'.<p>

When he shows up again properly (not just standing in the distance with a mallet dangling from his hand), he looks different. Regeneration, like Mickey has described. He's a newer model, but he's the same man.

Except, in a way, he isn't.

He doesn't just look different. He looks at _her _differently. He's changed enough that he can finally appreciate her the way she's always wanted.

She thinks about Mickey, who's been left by a woman he loved for the Doctor once before.

No, she won't leave Mickey. But she can't quite bring herself to say no to _him_, either.

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><p>Title: Mistaken Identity<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 193: Insult. Set during Season 3.<p>

"Doctor, just tell me already!"

"Leave it, Rose!"

The Doctor's suddenly wide eyes meet Martha's.

"Er," the Doctor says awkwardly. "Sorry. Martha. I meant Martha."

"I... it's okay," Martha says softly, trying not to sound stricken.

But it's not all right. It's the worst slight possible, not even remembering it's her he's talking to. They've been together for months, and still she feels like just a replacement. He goes to say something sometimes, grinning, and looks surprised that she's there instead of someone else. Not just surprised. Disappointed.

It breaks her heart, but she bears it. She has little choice.

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><p>Title: The Taste of Her<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Ten/Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 182: Acid Test. Good lord, I had trouble thinking of something for this prompt, so I went pretty abstract. Set during Season 3.<p>

He sometimes has a bit of trouble figuring humans out. Their brains work in different (and, regardless of their contrary claims, far more insane) ways than his own.

However, Martha is fairly easy to read sometimes. Particularly, there's one thing in her mind that screams out to him without him ever having to press his fingers against her temples.

She wants him. And she's willing to do almost anything to get what she wants.

She wants him. He wants comfort. He's willing to find out whether the combination can work.

The taste of her burns his tongue. It tastes _wrong_.

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><p>Title: A Companion to Save<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 172: Pod. Set during '42'.<p>

He can't quite work out why those two backed themselves into an escape pod. Martha wouldn't have recognised its purpose, so that's understandable. The boy, however, should have known.

He's reminded of another particularly jeopardy-friendly companion. If it had been her, she'd have probably completely failed to let him know what was going on because she was stubborn enough to think she could work it out on her own. And then, miraculously, somehow she probably would have.

He has a companion to save. He knows she's brilliant as well. It's just that sometimes he can't help wishing Rose was here.

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><p>Title: The Beginning of Her Crush<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Martha/Ten (unrequited)  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 165: Yen. Set during 'Smith and Jones'.<p>

In retrospect, Martha thinks that the moment the Doctor whips off his second shoe and throws it into a bin with gusto, wiggling his toes and making an offhand joke, signalled the beginning of her crush. They're on the moon in the middle of saving thousands of people and he's making jokes. How could she not fall for him?

The kiss that happens later is what cements it, though. For all that he says that it means nothing, she's never been kissed that way before. It gives her hope that his heart – hearts – might be fluttering the same way as hers is.

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><p>Title: Holding Onto Traditions<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Martha, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 118: Cartoon. Set during Season 3.<p>

"You're watching cartoons?" Martha asked, incredulous.

"What's wrong with that?" the Doctor asked. "I love cartoons. They're the only things you humans ever create that come close to representing how strange and wonderful the universe is."

"But we could be off seeing the universe for real," Martha said, trying to sound tempting.

The Doctor's face turned quickly obstinate, then. "It's tradition, all right? Cartoons, once a week. _Every _week."

Judging from the look of him, and just how empty the other side of the couch seemed even to her, Martha didn't have to ask with whom he'd shared that tradition.

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><p>Title: Culture Shock<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 109: The Other Side of the Pond. Set during 'Daleks in Manhattan'.<p>

The Doctor has been through the 'Great Depression' of the 1930s, and many economic downturns with even worse consequences, numerous times before. He's spent some time in the shanty towns. He knows what to expect.

Martha, however, seems stunned. She's fairly well off financially, the Doctor knows, so the idea of people living in the United States (a great nation of its time) worrying about when their next scrap of food will come along is completely foreign to her.

Even taking her to an alien planet wouldn't have demonstrated how small her world really is like this moment has done.

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><p>Title: The Chicken Equivalent<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Martha, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 89: Witch. Set during 'The Shakespeare Code'.<p>

"It cackled, it had warts, and it could fly on a _broomstick_," Martha said. "There's no way you can tell me that that wasn't a witch."

"'Witch' is just the word that's used when you don't have another name for it," the Doctor said. "If I could just find the _real_name..."

"Well, all right, you get right on that," Martha said, rolling her eyes. "But if it walks like a chicken, clucks like a chicken, and lays eggs like a chicken, I don't care if it prefers to be called a wasp; I'm still naming it a bloody chicken."

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><p>Title: Wishful Thinking<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Martha, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 61: Shakespeare. Set during 'The Shakespeare Code'.<p>

Bad breath or no, Martha sort of wished she'd gone ahead and kissed Shakespeare. Even apart from the knowledge (though she'd be sectioned if she shared it with anyone back home) that she'd kissed _William Shakespeare_, at least she might have seen the Doctor's reaction. He'd seemed jealous earlier when Shakespeare had been flirting with her. Maybe if he saw what he was missing...

But she'd missed her chance, and the Doctor was no longer acting like she was anything but a transitory passenger. She'd never really been a jealous person, but she thought of that girl, Rose, and sighed.

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><p>Title: Hobbits<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 54: Tolkien. Set during Season 3.<p>

"Hobbits are so _not _real," Martha admonished the Doctor. "Quit having me on."

"No, really. Oh, there's no Bilbo or Frodo, and they're actually called Ewoks – bit of miscommunication between Lucas and Tolkein, there – but they are, in every way that matters, essentially identical to hobbits."

"What's their planet called then? Middle Earth?"

The Doctor frowned thoughtfully. "That'd be confusing, what with Earth being called Earth, and it having its own middle. No, it's called Hallivaleriform."

"Oh," Martha says. She's still not sure if he's joking. "Can we go there, then?"

The Doctor grinned. "Why do you think I brought it up?"

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><p>Title: Racial Discrimination<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Martha, John Smith  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 46: Black. Set during 'Human Nature'.<p>

Martha Jones doesn't think it's a coincidence that the TARDIS landed them in 1913. It's a place where she wouldn't agree to stay long-term, being treated more like a slave than the servant she's had to become. It's also a place that the Doctor, as John Smith, would never even consider her, looking the way she does, let alone decide to fall madly in love with her.

She's always been proud of her skin colour. There's a lot of heritage there. But for just a moment (a sad little moment alone in the TARDIS), she wishes it could've been different.

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><p>Title: On the Hunt<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: PG<br>Character/s: Martha, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 35: Quarry. Set during 'The Lazarus Experiment'.<p>

That massive beast was once an elderly man who only wanted to live, Martha remembers. Now it's nothing more than a monster stalking its quarry up a bell tower, seeking out their deaths. Even after being with the Doctor for a few weeks, she still can't quite always wrap her head around the fact that these things can happen. A man, brilliant but ultimately ordinary, can become _that _and hunt his fellow humans like it's sport.

Martha wonders whether the real monsters aren't the aliens, but the people who take action, like Lazarus, without caring who gets in their way.

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><p>Title: Stuck<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 36: Sleepless. Set during 'Blink'.<p>

The fact that the Doctor barely sleeps has never been as obvious as when he's stuck in 1969. There's little he can do but wait around for certain events to unfold.

He can't even fill the time that Martha's off getting some rest with activity to keep his mind busy enough to ease the passing of time. As it stands, they don't even have enough money for him to waste on things like books for entertainment.

Martha grows inestimably frustrated with him. The Doctor thinks that she cannot possibly understand just how hard being stuck like this is on him.

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><p>Title: The Importance of History<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 28: On the Meaning of Space Travel. Set during Season 3 around 'Blink'.<p>

"You want to go to the moon _again_?"

"1969, to the moon landing," Martha affirmed.

"You know," the Doctor sighed, already circling the console and flicking switches, "when I told you the TARDIS could travel in space, I didn't mean in the human sense, where you can barely make it to the nearest rock. We could go _anywhere_."

"It's not just about space travel, though," Martha said. "It's history. _My _history. That's where it started for humans. It's nice to look back between trips hopping across the universe."

The Doctor contemplated her. "Yeah," he said finally. "I suppose it is."

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><p>Title: Burning<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 29: Spring. Set during 'Gridlock'.<p>

Gallifrey in the spring looked like the whole planet was ablaze with burning colours. The snow capping the peaks of the mountains was just finishing melting away, providing nourishment to the red grass regrowing below.

It was this vista that the Doctor found himself describing to Martha in the underbelly of New New York. The scene in his mind's eye was so different from the dreary reality that surrounded the two of them that Gallifrey seemed grander still on reflection.

That was how he chose to remember Gallifrey. It was better than remembering the times when it actually _was_burning.

* * *

><p>Title: Overheating<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 15: Heat  Water. Set during '42'.

The Doctor doesn't seem to feel the heat (or the cold, for that matter) quite as much as Martha, so he's coping fairly well with their current situation. Martha, though, feels like she'll burn up into ash and atoms at any moment, it's so hot.

She can't think properly in this heat, which isn't helpful when they now have only about thirty minutes to live and she's got to answer these random questions. It's like a pub quiz, if one was hosted in hell.

When they get out of this (and they will), she's demanding the Doctor buys her ice-cream.

* * *

><p>Title: A Sea of Traffic<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 16: Traffic. Set during 'Gridlock'.<p>

Looking out into a sea of vehicles just like the one she's in now, Martha resolves never to complain about London traffic again. An hour or two in peak hour standstill suddenly seems like nothing compared to potentially spending half of her life stuck on the motorway.

She sings along with the others to bolster her spirits, but it's hard to have hope. The traffic seems to never end, so how can she be sure she'll ever escape?

She'll have to pray that the Doctor knows what he's doing, because she has no way to get herself out of this.


	3. Doctor and Master Relationship Drabbles

**Doctor and Master Relationship Drabbles** (everything focused on the Doctor and the Master as a pair, including both slash and gen)

* * *

><p>Title: Invisible Bindings<br>Rating: Adult  
>Warnings: Coarse language and sexual references<br>Character/s: Doctor/Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 324: Gape.<p>

The constant push-pull of power between them has always been like screwing with their clothes on, with the advantage of not needing to get close enough to make themselves vulnerable.

He's always suspected that distance can't last, but he still stares disbelievingly at the Master's hand wrapped firmly around him.

He half expects the Master to strap him down in some show of dominance, but it never happens. The Master probably enjoys knowing he doesn't _need _that to hold the Doctor in thrall. They're both aware that the Doctor won't struggle or run.

Where else would he want to be?

* * *

><p>Title: Taking Advantage of the Paradox<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: The Master, Ten, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 312: Play. Set during an AU 'The Sound of Drums''The Last of the Time Lords'.

Even if the TARDIS hadn't been restricted to 21st century Earth, the Master would have put in a visit anyway. He loves playing with the Doctor's disgusting little humans just to see how it _hurts _him.

He shreds the TARDIS and it screams for some girl. The Master can sense, somehow, that the Doctor would scream in a similar way.

He's building a paradox machine. No sense wasting it.

When the Doctor sees that the Master's snatched Rose Tyler out of time and space and has been toying with her for _months_, something in him breaks. The Master loves it.

* * *

><p>Title: This Time (The Last Time)<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten/Simm!Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 310: Roar. Set during 'The End of Time Part Two'.<p>

The Master lets out a reverberating roar and his life energy flickers dangerously. The Doctor wants to turn away. Knowing what's going to happen is painful.

He isn't sure that he can witness the man he's both loved and hated for centuries die yet again.

But when the Master's flame does finally burn out, the Doctor's eyes are glued to the tableau. Of course they are. He can't even hold the man in his arms as he dies this time. The _least _the Doctor can do is watch.

His hearts ache, but he doesn't shed a tear. Not this time.

* * *

><p>Title: Cracked Wide Open<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: The Doctor, the Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 293: Menace. Set sometime long after 'The End of Time'.<p>

At one time the Master's mental acuity would have far outstripped any other living being in the universe. That, however, had been before the last assault on the Time Lords had finally broken his mind.

The Doctor had thought that he'd died back then. Perhaps that would have been better.

The Master had always been a menace, a threat that needed to be controlled, but this... this wasn't what the Doctor had ever wanted. This man, with his easy acceptance of everything the Doctor said and his cheerful demeanour, wasn't the Master at all.

The Doctor found he missed him.

* * *

><p>Title: Close Enough to Touch History<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: The Doctor, the Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 194: Coeval.<p>

In some ways, they couldn't be more different. Fairly significant ways, actually, with the Master wanting to take over the universe and ignoring 'morals', which he thought were designed for lesser beings.

The Doctor could never quite forget, though, that Koschei had been the only one of their contemporaries to even begin to understand the Doctor's view of the universe as more than just something to be observed from afar.

The Doctor wanted to help the suffering people. The Master wanted to _own _them. But it was still all about getting close enough to touch history.

They were the same.

* * *

><p>Title: Imperative<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten/Simm!Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 168: Mail  Male. Set during The Year That Never Was, between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'.

The Doctor hasn't been near other Gallifreyans for years. His body doesn't recognise that he's the last of his species, exactly, but the lack of pheromones affects him. So when those pheromones reappear unexpectedly, his body notices.

It doesn't seem to matter that they're both male.

The Doctor knows exactly what will happen if he allows his hormones to be drive him. It won't be him that ends up on top.

He looks speculatively at the Master, wondering whether he's feeling the mating imperative as well. Then he shakes his head, hard.

Being locked away is clearly driving him insane.

* * *

><p>Title: I Am My Own Executioner<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Simm!Master, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 150: Speeding Bullet. Set during 'The End of Time Part Two'.<p>

A gun was aimed at him. That feeling might be familiar, if it wasn't for who was holding it.

The bullet moved so fast that he could barely dodge, but it still missed. That was a pity, really.

He was damaged. He was going to die. But he'd long since resolved that only two people could be responsible for his death. One had just shot at him and missed on purpose. The other was himself.

He revenged himself on the Time Lords and ceased to exist. For once in their lives, the Doctor couldn't quite manage to stop the Master.

* * *

><p>Title: Definitions Make the Man<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten, Simm!Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 87: Archenemy. Set in The Year That Never Was, between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'.<p>

The Doctor watches the Master prance about the _Valiant_, too weak and too down-trodden to do much about it. Even at the end of his first life, he'd never felt this old and tired. It's a good punishment, and an even better way to incapacitate him, he'll give the Master that.

He studies the Master and wonders how he'd ever describe this relationship. Are they archenemies, or friends, or still (as once) lovers, or even, God forbid, _frenemies_?

Right now, they are none of those things. They are owner and pet. The Master keeps him, and he revels in it.

* * *

><p>Title: Travelling Through an Oscillating Mind<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: PG<br>Character/s: Ten, Simm!Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 25: Scattered. Set during 'The End of Time Part One'.<p>

"_Listen_," the Master begs, pressing their foreheads together. And it's the first time the Master has truly asked him for anything, so the Doctor does.

The Master's thoughts are so erratic and scattered that it takes the Doctor a moment to realise what he's listening to. The memories gape like open wounds. It's madness in the Master's mind, and the Doctor struggles not to be pulled into it.

But overlaying all of that, the only constant amongst wildly oscillating thoughts, is the drumbeat. Four beats, in frequent succession. Over and over and over, never-ending.

He'd have probably gone mad, too.

* * *

><p>Title: A Necessary Part<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Simm!Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 6: Hate. Set during 'The Last of the Time Lords'.<p>

Every single person on board the Valiant, and every person down on the Earth below, hated the Master. Enough to want to kill him. And, being humans, they were as likely as not to try.

The Doctor knew he had to watch out for that.

No matter what the Master had done to him over the past year, or even before that, he could never bring himself to hate him. The Master was a part of him as much as his second heart. If he cut it out, he wouldn't die. But the pain might make him wish he had.

* * *

><p>Title: The Last Survivors<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Simm!Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 13: Gallifrey. Set during 'The Sound of Drums'.<p>

They're the last two left. The Doctor and the Master, talking over the phone about the loss of Gallifrey. A half-century ago they were both outcasts from the planet. Neither of them was particularly torn up about that at the time. The Doctor had run away from Gallifrey in his stolen TARDIS for a reason, after all, and the Master had always seen himself as beyond that assembly of pointless observers.

But there they were, mourning it. And though some might've thought they were the worst choices to be the only ones to remember Gallifrey, it still seemed somehow right.


	4. Assorted Het Drabbles

**Assorted Het Drabbles** (everything focused on het relationships other than those with their own separate chapters)

* * *

><p>Title: Pushing Each Other Away<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Rose/Mickey, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 247: Frustration. Set during the beginning of Season 2.<p>

First she meets Sarah Jane and the Doctor implies that Rose is just yet another of the many who've travelled with him. Then he invites Mickey on board the TARDIS. By the time he runs off to be with another woman, Rose has got the message.

He's pushing her away.

Two can play at that.

Rose knows that Mickey's well aware that when she takes his hand and draws him towards her bedroom, it's not really about him. She's frustrated, and he's _there_.

Still, she's sees the permission to use him in Mickey's eyes. He's just a man, after all.

* * *

><p>Title: Boyfriends<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rose/Mickey, Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 209: Domestic. Set during Season 1.<p>

"Oh, come on," Rose said. "We've gotta go refuel in Cardiff anyways. I'm just asking you to tell me what time you're aiming for so I can let Mickey know. Is that so hard?"

Of course it is, the Doctor thinks. He's not keen on having her boyfriends anywhere near him or his ship.

He tells himself that it's because he doesn't want her making his TARDIS all domestic. How many times does he have to remind her that he just doesn't _do_that?

He refuses to consider that maybe he really doesn't want to admit she _has_a boyfriend.

* * *

><p>Title: In Her Wake<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Rose/Mickey, past Rose/Jimmy Stone implied  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 207: Sink  Swim.

Rose barely even realises she's drowning until she breaches the surface. The burn in her tired lungs suggests she's been under for way too long.

Rose doesn't want her Mum to see her like this. Mickey takes one look at her blackened eye and tells her to stay. She falls into bed with Mickey as a sort of thanks and remembers, for the first time in months, that sex can be good for _her _as well.

It's Mickey that teaches her to swim again. Only, once she gets into her own rhythm, he's left in her wake.

Rose barely notices.

* * *

><p>Title: Trouble<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Rose/Jimmy Stone, Rose/Mickey, Jackie  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 202: Miscreant<p>

Jimmy Stone is trouble. It's what draws Rose to him, she thinks. Ultimately, it's also what drives her away. He's a criminal, and an addict, and he takes her for all she has. Eventually she gets up the courage to leave.

She crawls back to safety in the form of her mother and Mickey, who've both waited for her. It doesn't take long for 'safety' to start feeling like boredom, but she's got little choice but to stick with it.

Rose likes to think Jimmy Stone messed up her life. It's a lie. She did that all on her own.

* * *

><p>Title: Killjoy<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Rose/Jimmy Stone, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 261: Pot.<p>

"You shouldn't smoke that."

Jimmy snatched the joint from between Rose's fingers, asking, "What, this? You tryin' to tell my girl what to do? Fuckin' killjoy."

Rose fidgeted uncomfortably. Ridiculous bowtie or not, he could be a cop. Her Mum would kill her if Jimmy landed them in the watchhouse again.

The man didn't even spare a glance at Jimmy, though. "You're so much better than this," he said to Rose, and then turned and left.

"Yeah, right," Jimmy snorted. "_Better_."

It would be nice, Rose thought, if her own boyfriend thought as much of her as some random stranger.

* * *

><p>Title: More Than Transitory<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Rose/Jack, Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 280: Stir. Set between 'The Doctor Dances' and 'Boom Town'.<p>

The Doctor obviously initially thinks that Jack's just another of her pretty boys. It's so different, though. She doesn't want to just string him along, or revel in his flirtations. She pushes him away, secretly hoping he'll push back. She wants it to be much _more_.

Maybe it's different because while Jack is certainly pretty, he's no mere _boy_.

When the Doctor finally really sees the intense way Rose _watches_Jack, the change is immediately obvious. He begins treating him as more than just some transitory passenger.

She thinks that Jack might appreciate that change even more than she does.

* * *

><p>Title: Simply Incomplete<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Rose/Jack  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 252: Collective. Set late during Season 1.<p>

Rose and Jack try it together once.

It's absolutely brilliant, of course. Rose quickly realises that somehow Jack actually _does_ measure up to his own hubris. Still, though they love each other, it's sort of obvious that they're both just _settling_.

As great as they are together, neither of them can get past the feeling that something's missing. They're part of a team of three. Apparently that goes for this part of their lives as well. It doesn't matter that the Doctor will likely never take that step with either of them.

Without him there with them, they're simply incomplete.

* * *

><p>Title: A New Man On Board<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Mickey/TARDIS, Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 175: Coax. Set during 'Aliens of London'.<p>

Prior to Rose, the TARDIS spends too long alone with the Doctor. The more people with her now, the better.

A new human comes on board, and she sees her chance. He leans up against the coral, and the TARDIS vibrates welcomingly. He has very human male reaction to that. The TARDIS doesn't mind. She just wants him to stay.

She's throwing herself at him, but she's desperate. The Doctor, unimpressed with her 'flirting', insults the human, who leaves. The TARDIS zaps the Doctor in retaliation. She threatens to leave him behind if the human doesn't come back.

He grumbles.

* * *

><p>Title: Someone Who Really Sees<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten II/Jackie, Ten II/Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 155: Lost at Sea. Set post-'Journey's End'.<p>

He's been shoved into another universe, separated from his _life_, yet everyone thinks Rose is the only one who has to adjust.

He loves Rose and realises that it must be hard being dumped with a man who isn't quite who she wants. Still, he wishes that someone would see that she's not the only one hurting.

Someone does. Jackie's been through the same.

One of her mocking snogs turns into something more understanding and comforting. For a moment, the Doctor falls into it. Then he yanks himself away.

He runs back to Rose, unsure of what to tell her.

* * *

><p>Title: A Better Fit For Her<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jackie/alt!Pete  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 196: Found. Set during and post-'Doomsday'.<p>

Jackie's been looking for someone for nearly twenty years. Men have come and gone, of course. She sees the look on Mickey's face when she says there hasn't been anyone else. Of course there have been _men_. But not anyone who's _anyone_. Not anyone who's mattered, in the end.

When she does find someone, it's the same man she started with. But it's also not. He's successful, and that's given him confidence. She finds she likes it. He's a better fit for her than her Pete ever was.

She wonders whether it's really disloyal to think so. He's still _Pete_.

* * *

><p>Title: Judge of Character<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jackie/Elton, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 152: Monster. Set during 'Love and Monsters'.<p>

When she finds Rose's picture in Elton's jacket, Jackie first thinks that he's some sort of predator. However, even though she's never been a particularly good judge of character, Jackie thinks that the blokes she genuinely believes are decent sorts, like Elton, don't usually tend to turn out to be _monsters_.

Then she remembers the Doctor, and the way her call to a helpline was once used to track him down. This isn't about her, or even Rose. It's _him_.

Jackie really likes Elton, but damned if she's going to be the reason her daughter has anyone _else_after her.

* * *

><p>Title: It Was All About You<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten/Sarah Jane  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 191: Conflict. Set during 'School Reunion' and 'The Wedding of Sarah Jane' (from the Sarah Jane Adventures).<p>

It takes Rose prompting him before he asks Sarah along on the TARDIS again. He doesn't want to seem too eager.

Sarah says no. After the way she'd talked, he doesn't expect that.

Just to prove he's unaffected, though, he accepts Mickey along instead. 'I just wanted another companion', he's making clear. 'Any companion. It wasn't about _you_, particularly.'

Still, he finds out several years down the track that she's getting married. He struggles to stop himself as long as he can, but he eventually he can't help but interfere.

He can't stand for her to belong to another man.

* * *

><p>Title: Another Grin Like That<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten/Christina de Souza, implied Doctor/Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 225: Charm. Goes AU during 'The Planet of the Dead'.<p>

Her smile is thoroughly charming. He'll admit, it gets to him. He'd been ready to leave her behind, but...

The Doctor can see she's more than willing. She isn't like Martha, who would have taken it be so much more important to him than it actually is. Between the two of them, it'll just be a good time, and an escape.

As soon as she's inside the TARDIS, he backs her against the console and snogs her.

He hopes that it might help him momentarily forget the last woman who favoured him with a toothy grin like Christina's.

It doesn't.

* * *

><p>Title: A Chain Around Her Neck<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Warnings: Violence, implied BDSM<br>Character/s: Master/Lucy  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 329: Pendulum  Pendulous. Set between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'.

When she's in public, the necklace he gifted her when her father first introduced them swings about her neck like a trophy, much like she's realised she herself is.

When they're alone together, it becomes an entirely different type of chain. He twists it in his fist and uses it to pull her roughly towards him. She chokes quietly until he lets go of it to shove her onto the bed.

It's been a long time since Lucy's shed tears, even the silent tears that she initially couldn't help at times like these.

Crying only makes Harry enjoy it more.

* * *

><p>Title: Tracing Patterns Around Her Neck<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Lucy/Simm!Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 230: Bauble  Babble / Bobble. Set during Season 3.

Harry brings her shiny baubles at first. She eventually realises that they're not tokens of his love, merely status symbols. 'Look at how well I can afford to treat my wife', they shout. They're purely for show, much like she is.

It takes her a long time to fully realise her place in the world. Longer than it should, probably. But learn she does.

After conquering Earth, Harry – no, she remembers, _the Master_– decides that, now that no one cares about her appearances, he likes to score dark bruises into her neck, where diamonds once hung.

She misses being ignorant.

* * *

><p>Title: The Things You Never Knew You'd Miss<br>Rating: Adult  
>Characters: Jack/Lucy, Simm!Master  
>Warnings: Non-con, voyeurism, some coarse language<br>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 219: Wind. Set during The Year That Never Was, between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'.

Jack had been bitter for so long that he'd stopped appreciating a lot of things. Now, he misses only dying once every couple of months; that was a laugh compared to this. He misses the wind in his hair, because being outside again would be like freedom. More than anything, though, he misses a time when sex was voluntary and fun.

With the threat of even greater harm being done to the Doctor (the Master's got his number, there), Jack repeatedly touches Lucy Saxon. They both hate it, but the Master likes to watch and mock, and that's what matters.

* * *

><p>Title: Not So Much the Fairy-Tale<br>Rating: Adult  
>Characters: The Master/Verity Newman  
>Warnings: Implied non-con and violence<br>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 220: Cakewalk.

Even when it seems like the Master has it all his way, somehow the Doctor always manages to come out on top.

Not this time.

Most of the little human girls that are aware of regeneration wouldn't be fooled by an impersonator. Even though this one means something to the Doctor, though, to her he's barely more than a fairy-tale. His story shaped her life so integrally that she's published a book about him, but she doesn't _know _him.

When the Master makes Verity Newman scream, he does it in the Doctor's name. It's a small revenge, but it's his.

* * *

><p>Title: Vague Memories of Freedom<br>Rating: Adult  
>Characters: Simm!Master/Martha  
>Warnings: Brief non-con and torture.<br>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 216: Free. Goes AU during 'Last of the Time Lords'.

She'd thought it had been a year since she'd last been properly free. Free to do as she likes, and move about without fear of death, and not have to witness others dying if she chooses not to.

Now, however, she knows that that year was _nothing_. Now she knows what it's truly like to be confined.

He carves his own frustrations from that year into her skin, and her ensuing screams just seem to excite him all the more. He takes it out on her that way, as well, trapping her wrists above her head.

She remembers freedom. Vaguely.

* * *

><p>Title: Playing With Earth Girls<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Simm!Master/Donna  
>Warnings: Slight elements of non-con.<br>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 200: Rome / Roam. Goes slightly AU during 'The End of Time Part Two'; in this AU, it takes a bit more than everyone turning into the Master for Donna to start remembering the Doctor.

"What has he done to _you_, then?" the man who'd become _everyone_ asked as he (several hims) stalked towards her. "He does so love playing with Earth girls. Oh, but you can't remember! Here. I'll _help _you."

He forces his lips against hers. Memories flow.

She's in Rome. No, it's Pompeii, and long ago. Then there's a giant red spider woman, and squid-faced _things_, and a flurry of images that make her so dizzy that–

Her head feels like it explodes, and the man's groping hands fall away from her. She barely has time to be relieved before she falls.

* * *

><p>Title: It's a Quiet Life<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rory/Amy  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 184: Content. Set during 'Amy's Choice'.<p>

It was a quiet life in Upper Leadworth, but Rory liked it. He was practising medicine, and he and Amy were married and expecting (any day now, by the look of her, though Rory valued his life a little too much to voice that out loud within Amy's earshot).

Rory was content.

Then the Doctor arrived. What should have been a simple (though awkward) trip down memory lane became a nightmare. Not because Rory was worried that his life wasn't real, but because Amy seemed to _wish_it wasn't.

He wanted what she wanted. Even if it wasn't that life.

* * *

><p>Title: What I Do For a Living<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Amy/Rory  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 162: Hats. Set in the twelve year gap in 'The Eleventh Hour.<p>

Amy's got a hat for every occasion. There's her ever-handy police hat, a nun's wimple, a nurse's cap, a cowgirl hat (with chaps to go with it, mind), a French maid's headpiece, and many more besides.

A one of the guys in town once asked her why she always wears such odd outfits. She snogs him, then explains that she's a kiss-o-gram. He hires her for his very next birthday party.

Rory used to get annoyed that she kissed other men for a living. Since she's started showcasing her hats (and nothing but) just for him, though, he's stopped complaining.

* * *

><p>Title: Watching Your Figure<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Amy/Rory  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 309: Ersatz. Set during 'Amy's Choice'.<p>

"What exactly is _this_?" Amy asked, sounding disgusted.

Rory turned to look at her. "It's chocolate. You said you wanted chocolate, right? I had to go out specially to get that. What's wrong with it?"

Amy looked ready to explode. "_Excuse _me? Who exactly is lugging around your child? This isn't chocolate, it's that rubbish fake fat-free stuff. What, are you trying to say? That I need to cut back? This isn't fat, it's a tiny person inside me!"

Family life was Rory's dream, and he loved Amy, but sometimes she made him want to hit his head against something.

* * *

><p>Title: Ridiculous Displays of Faux Masculinity<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Amy/Rory, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 287: Predator. Set during 'The Vampires of Venice'.<p>

The vampire, fish alien from space, whatever, stalked towards Amy with a predatory look in his eyes and razor sharp teeth protruding from his mouth. She felt frozen, the same way she'd found herself unable to move with her eyes closed, stuck in a forest surrounded by Angels. Fight or flight had yet to kick in, and for that moment she was merely prey.

Then Rory stepped up and managed to save her, albeit in possibly the most ridiculous display of faux masculinity she'd ever seen.

The Doctor was right. Being in a life-or-death situation did result in gratuitous kissing.

* * *

><p>Title: A Kiss, Some Straddling and a Realisation or Two<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Amy/Eleven, River  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 290: Surprise. Set during 'The Time of Angels', and intended as something of an explanation for the end of 'Flesh and Stone'.<p>

A woman flew from the vacuum of space into the TARDIS, landing on top of the Doctor. Perhaps it was the strange vibe between them, or just the compromising position they were in, but for the first time Amy considered that the Doctor might just be a sexual being like anyone else.

She was surprised she hadn't considered it until then. She'd been very young on first meeting him, she supposed, but she _had _seen him strip naked and still hadn't thought of it.

A world of possibilities opened up. Best of all, she might not have to get married.

* * *

><p>Title: All Over Again<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Eleven/Amy, implied Doctor/Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 243: Hide. Set during and post-'Flesh and Stone'.<p>

He's gone down this road before, where a companion has breached the walls he always keeps around his hearts. Amy's so young. She's both innocent and incredibly worldly at the same time. She just reminds him so much of _her _in some ways.

That's why he has to ignore these feelings. Why he has to hide them so deeply that Amy can never suspect.

Then she kisses him. It takes everything he's got to push her away, and towards another man. In the long run, though, he knows it's for the best.

He can't let himself fall in love again.

* * *

><p>Title: Everyone Has One Last Fling<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Amy/Jack, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 179: Icon. Set early during Season 5.<p>

The Doctor so rarely talks about anything that happened to him prior to meeting Amy that when he mentions Jack Harkness, she presses for details.

What he tells her is so ridiculously overblown that she can't help but build up her mental image of Jack to be something far greater and more iconic than any real man could measure up to. Still, she insists they go and meet him.

Jack doesn't disappoint. If anything, the Doctor's somehow undersold him.

He flirts outrageously with her. Amy thinks to herself, 'Why not? Everyone has one last fling before they get married, right?'


	5. Assorted Slash Drabbles

**Assorted Slash Drabbles** (everything focused on slash relationships other than those with their own separate chapters)

* * *

><p>Title: A Pair of Jacks<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jack/Jack  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 344: Splendid. Set sometime prior to the first episode of Torchwood.<p>

He's a bit surprised this has never happened before. Hundreds of years of existence with no end in sight, with the occasional Vortex Manipulator or even a TARDIS at his disposal, and he's only now running into himself.

The Doctor, if he was here, would probably say it was a massive threat to the stability of the time continuum. He'd be right.

Jack still thinks it's fantastic.

He was a Time Agent for too long to be stupid enough to risk a paradox through direct contact. There are so many other things two of him can get up to, though.

* * *

><p>Title: Dying in a Fireball<br>Rating: Adult  
>Characters: Simm!Master/Jack  
>Warnings: Torture and implied non-con<br>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 232: Char. Set during The Year That Never Was, between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'.

Jack is like the phoenix of Earth's legends. He suffers and dies so beautifully before being born anew, no less perfect than before. Phoenixes die in a fireball, though.

The Master experiments. Apparently Jack does too, in certain circumstances.

What the Master likes most, though, is keeping Jack alive. Death heals him, so the Master prolongs the gaps between. He scorches his name into Jack's flesh and laments the fact that it'll be gone the next time Jack 'wakes up'.

He marks Jack as his in other ways too. He thinks the effect of that might be more permanent, somehow.

* * *

><p>Title: Sneak Attacks<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Nine/Jack  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 322: Pinch. Set late in Season 1.<p>

The Doctor shouted and bolted upright. He swung around and glared at Jack.

"Did you just... _pinch _me?" the Doctor gritted out.

"What, you're surprised? How long have you known me?"

"Not long enough for you to be touching me _there_, that's for sure," the Doctor griped. "Keep your hands to yourself, Captain."

"Or what?"

"I'll tie them down so you've got no choice."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "No objections here."

The Doctor sighed and went back to working on the console, careful to make his backside a less accessible target. Sometimes he wondered why he'd let Jack on board.

* * *

><p>Title: Good Fortune<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Jack/Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 139: Mysteries.<p>

It was something of a mystery to Jack why the Doctor wouldn't just make a move with Rose. Unlike Rose herself, the Doctor shouldn't be bound by the old-fashioned constraints Jack had witnessed in the 20th century. Surely he didn't think that the world would end if they tried it and it didn't work out?

However, if this was the result of the Doctor's frustration, Jack wasn't exactly going to complain.

The Doctor buried his mouth in Jack's neck to stifle his groan as Jack ran his hands expertly over him, and Jack smiled to himself at his good fortune.

* * *

><p>Title: Flirting With Disaster<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jack/Nine (unrequited)  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 104: Flirting with Disaster.<p>

Jack thinks that the Doctor will be the death of him one day.

He's never pledged his life to anyone before now. But this man... Jack would die for him. No question. He'd die to save Rose as well, but he'd do that because Rose is the Doctor's _life_. Jack accepts that. He knows that he'll never share that distinction. No matter how much he flirts or ingratiates himself, those two are inseparable. Jack will always be on the outside.

Jack doesn't have to stay. He doesn't have to put himself in danger for them. But how could he leave?

* * *

><p>Title: The Most Important<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Ten/Mickey, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 250: Salient. Goes AU just pre-'Rise of the Cybermen'.<p>

Mickey will never be the most important person in the Doctor's life. Rose has the distinction of being absolutely vital to him; that's hard to live up to.

That doesn't mean, though, that the Doctor doesn't want Mickey to stick around. He's missed having an assortment of people onboard the TARDIS.

He doesn't quite know how to _say_ this. As much as he likes talking usually, he's never been good at discussing things like _that_.

He's sort of surprised how well Mickey takes being kissed by another man. The Doctor's glad. It means he doesn't have to say a word.

* * *

><p>Title: Just Projecting Onto Me<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Ten/Ten II  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 199: Denunciation. Goes AU from 'Journey's End'.<p>

"You're wrong," the Doctor groans, jerking.

"So are you. We're the same. You're just projecting what you're afraid of onto me."

The Doctor tries to remember why he allows his half-human self to stay. Then the other man presses a finger to the Doctor's temple, and he suddenly _isn't alone_. That's it, isn't it? The reason. He wants another Time Lord, even if he's only a dangerous hybrid. He wants to not be alone.

It has nothing to do with the fact that this other him knows exactly how to run his free hand– "Nnnhuh like that!"

Nothing at all.

* * *

><p>Title: A Sudden Need to Have At Him<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Eleven/Rory, Amy  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 167: Pitch. Set mid-Season 5.<p>

He considered just pitching Rory out of the TARDIS, before reminding himself that _he'd _asked Rory on board. Someone needed to distract Amy from her sudden need to have at him. He'd been there with companions before. It generally wasn't a good idea.

Of course, he'd failed to realise that Rory would pick fights with him. They constantly clashed, taking their frustrations about Amy's behaviour out on each other.

When their duelling of tongues became something else altogether, though, the Doctor tried to remember what a bad idea it was. Somehow, he couldn't quite hold onto his train of thought.

* * *

><p>Title: Substitutes<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jake/Mickey (unrequited)  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 140: Creepy.<p>

Mickey sees the way that Jake looks at him. It's hard to hide that sort of thing when they're always in such close quarters, travelling across Europe to deal with the Cybermen.

He knows that Rickey and Jake were together _that way_. But Mickey isn't Rickey. He's more like Rickey than he ever was before, true, but he's still his own man. So it's somewhat creepy that Jake has seemingly just substituted Rickey for an indentical looking man.

He can't bring himself to say anything. But when the opportunity to return to his old universe comes up, he takes it.


	6. Assorted Femmeslash Drabbles

**Assorted Femmeslash Drabbles** (everything focused on femmeslash relationships)

* * *

><p>Title: Finding Her<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Implied Rose/Sarah Jane  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 253: Behind. Goes AU from 'Doomsday' (Rose never fell from that lever). From Sarah's PoV this happens pre-SJA.<p>

The fifth time the Doctor leaves her behind for her 'own good', Rose doesn't try to get back to him. Not immediately, anyway. Constantly wondering whether today will be the day that he'll just _drop _her is wearing on her. She needs a break.

Sarah Jane told Rose to find her. She's easy to track down.

Sarah's lonely. Rose needs someone who understands, and a place to stay. They sort of fall together. Neither of them expects it to become anything more.

Rose knows that one day she'll go back to the Doctor. For now, though, she's found something new.

* * *

><p>Title: Not For Children<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Lucy/Martha, Simm!Master  
>Warnings: Suggestions of non-con.<br>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 241: Martyr. Goes AU between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'.

She'd disappeared for seven months before Harry caught her. He'd tried many times to get her to open up about exactly what she'd been doing, or at least what the Doctor had said to her before she vanished from the _Valiant_. She wouldn't respond.

Harry decided not to kill Martha Jones so that she couldn't become a martyr. Instead, he presented her to Lucy, wrapped up like a toy (though not the kind that Lucy would have enjoyed when she was young).

As presents went, Lucy would have rathered something she wouldn't have to 'play' with for her husband's benefit.

* * *

><p>Title: A Shadow of Memory<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Donna/Rose (sort of), Ten/Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 231: Full  Empty. Set from 'Turn Left' to 'Journey's End'.

The blonde woman holds her hand and whispers in her ear as Donna dies. For that moment, Donna's whole world is filled with that woman who made her believe that she was worth something. And then the woman's gone, barely a shadow of memory.

When the Doctor's mind collides with hers, she thinks of nothing but Rose Tyler again. This is different, because she's feeling what the Doctor does. It's odd, because Donna really usually likes men. At the same time, it seems natural. And familiar.

And then Rose Tyler leaves, and the chance to remember her is stolen too.

* * *

><p>Title: Saving Herself<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Rose/alt!Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 228: Mazy. Set during Rose's inter-universal travels during Season 4.<p>

The girl dancing drunkenly before Rose is _Rose_, only younger and with hair dyed black in a way Rose's had never been.

This still isn't her universe.

The other Rose lets every slobbering male in the vicinity cop a feel and throws back another drink. She's crashing, worse than Rose herself ever had.

The Doctor had rescued her long before she got to this, but there's no Doctor in this parallel.

Paradoxes are complicated and winding, but this isn't technically _her_, so Rose chances it.

She kisses herself, and then tells her she's worth more. She hopes she believes it.

* * *

><p>Title: Swallowing Her Tears<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Rose/Amy, implied Rose/Ten II, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 223: Sign. AU set early in Season 5.<p>

The Doctor can't figure out how Rose ended up back in this universe. She clearly didn't want to be there, either. She loved the _other _Doctor, and the idea that she couldn't get back to him made her miserable.

The regeneration changed him so much that they didn't fit together anymore. He took the way that she and Amy were similar enough that they clashed as a sign that Amy wouldn't be any more comfort to Rose than he was.

When he caught them embracing – with Rose sobbing desperately into Amy's lips – he realised that he obviously got that a bit wrong.

* * *

><p>Title: Younger and Blonder (But No Less Legendary)<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: River/Rose (unrequited)  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 218: Legend. Set for Rose during her Dimension Cannon journeys pre-Turn Left, and sometime long after Season 5 for River. What can I say? I felt the need to see River admit to Rose's brilliance. ;)<p>

River tells stories of the Oncoming Storm, but she knows the Doctor's faults too well to buy into them herself. For her, there's only one unassailable legend inside the TARDIS.

River loves hearing about the woman who was both goddess enough to save the universe and human enough to steal the Doctor's hearts. She could have felt jealous. Instead, she's just intrigued.

When she accidentally meets Rose Tyler, River's surprised that she's so young and _blonde_. Still, a shadow behind her eyes speaks of painful travels across the universes. Even in reality, she's somehow larger-than-life.

River's not disappointed at all.

* * *

><p>Title: Scandalising the Locals<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rose/Martha, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 188: Lead. Goes AU during Season 3. Rose arrives back from Pete's World a little earlier than in canon.<p>

The last place Martha expects to find herself is willingly standing with Rose Tyler in a nineteenth-century ballroom. She's _hated_this woman for existing, yet here they are.

Martha had told herself she'd leave if Rose ever returned. She hasn't. Instead, they're all travelling together. Strangely, Martha isn't staying for the Doctor anymore.

There's a moment when it's unsure just who's going lead. But travelling with the Doctor has made Martha used to ceding control, and Rose is the most wonderfully stubborn person she's ever met.

They scandalise the locals, but Martha is enjoying the dance too much to care.

* * *

><p>Title: Practised Touch<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Reinette/Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 153: Cats and Dogs. Goes AU from 'The Girl in the Fireplace'.<p>

When the Doctor brings another woman on board, Rose expects to fight with her like cats and dogs. Maybe it's because she got that out of her system with Sarah Jane, or because she's already seen that Reinette is brilliant, but she somehow curbs the impulse to hate her.

Still, she never thought this would come of it.

The Doctor's unwilling to choose either of them. Reinette makes the choice instead. Rose imagines the Doctor would be stunned if he knew Reinette had turned to _her_.

Rose quickly learns to appreciate the practised touch of the world's most famous courtesan.

* * *

><p>Title: The Heart of a Person<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna/Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 151: Filth. Set during 'The Doctor's Daughter'.<p>

Strangely, it's when Martha's covered in muck that Donna has an epiphany.

Though she'll never view him that way, Donna understands why Martha (and Rose) fell for the Doctor during their travels. The Doctor's 'adventures' really reveal the heart of a person. It's difficult to see that and not be drawn in by them. Donna would have called someone crazy for suggesting it, but she sees how Martha has struggled today and feels... well.

Donna takes Martha's hand comfortingly.

Martha's engagement ring digs in between Donna's fingers. Martha makes no move to take her hand back, so Donna holds on.


	7. Assorted Threesome and Moresome Drabbles

**Assorted Threesome and Moresome Drabbles** (everything focused on multi-partner romantic relationships)

* * *

><p>Title: Unexpected Celibacy<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jack, Nine, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 120: Hard Work. Set during 'Boom Town'.<p>

Jack doesn't think he's ever spent so much time with anyone (two people, actually) who he fancies without sleeping with them. He's not kidding when he tells the Doctor he's hard work.

The irony is not lost on him that Rose and the Doctor are both out on dates, albeit not with each other, while Heartbreaker Harkness is alone on the TARDIS. Not only is he not sleeping with either (or both) of them, but somehow he's found himself unexpectedly celibate.

He thinks he'll buy that drink for the Doctor. Hard work or not, this state of limbo can't continue.

* * *

><p>Title: Learning to Share<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Rose/Eleven/River  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 268: Accord.<p>

The Doctor could never imagine how one day he and River were going to be _together_; he was incredibly intrigued by her, sure, but he was still in love with another woman.

He hadn't figured that the other woman in question might be _part_of it.

When Rose Tyler showed up in his universe _again _and immediately met River, the Doctor thought their jealousy might be enough to make the universe implode. After two weeks with both of them on the TARDIS, though, they'd clearly come to some sort of agreement.

During their separation, Rose had apparently learned to share.

* * *

><p>Title: Feminine Wiles<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Rory/Amy/Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 271: Saucy. Set post-Season 5.<p>

Amy Pond is obviously used to getting exactly what she wants. And why not? She has all the feminine wiles in the world to make men fall at her feet.

The Doctor holds out for as long as he can, of course. He throws Rory in her path to distract her. After the two men have sorted their issues out, though, Rory just shrugs and goes along with what Amy wants.

Amy wants them _both _involved, apparently.

The Doctor doesn't know how he went from refusing to kiss one companion to sleeping with _two_. He can't quite regret it, though.

* * *

><p>Title: An Eye For Attractive Companions<br>Rating: Bordering on Adult  
>Characters: Jack/Rose/Martha/Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 185: Knack. Set sometime around 'Journey's End'. Obviously it's AU.<p>

Jack's got a knack for convincing people to do things they wouldn't ever otherwise consider. Somehow he's got three women who would have professed only hours ago to be completely heterosexual in bed together, naked, with him being the only male at hand. He knows that it won't take them long to give up on the idea of focusing on him and start looking to each other. Inhibitions quickly follow clothing in falling away, he's found.

The Doctor's got an eye for attractive companions, no doubt. Jack can't understand why the man never takes advantage of that fact.

His loss.

* * *

><p>Title: Always the Ones You Least Expect<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Jack/Amy/Rory  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 226: Outnumbered. Set post-Season 5.<p>

It's hardly the first time he's slept with a married couple. Not by a long shot. It is, however, the first time he's felt somewhat overwhelmed by a couple from a sexually conservative era like the early 21st century.

He'd thought, when the Doctor introduced him, that they were an odd couple. Amy seemed willing to jump Jack the moment she saw him, while Rory seemed about as straight-laced as they came. He hadn't expected this in a million years.

But then, Jack should have remembered that it's always the ones you least expect who are the wildest in bed.


	8. Assorted Nine Era Gen Drabbles

**Assorted Nine Era Gen **(everything gen set during Nine's reign, except those involving specific characters and relationships that have chapters of their own)

* * *

><p>Title: Not Really a Sailor<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 21: Boats. Set during Season 1.<p>

The Doctor's been told that in this newest incarnation, dressed the way he is (what's _wrong_ with this jumper, anyway?) he looks a lot like a sailor. But that doesn't automatically mean that he's suddenly in any way fond of boats. Or the water. Or the icy black pit of wet that forms the North Atlantic in particular.

So when he finds himself on the HMS Titanic, plunging into the freezing water and only surviving long enough to breach the surface again due to his respiratory bypass, the Doctor grips onto an iceberg and decides he's very much _not impressed_. 

* * *

><p>Title: Wasted Time<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Pete Tyler, Jackie, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 45: Late. Set during 'Father's Day'.<p>

"You'd be late to your own funeral, and it nearly was!"

If only either Pete or Jackie had been aware then how right she was, maybe for once they'd have been able to cut the sniping and really taken advantage of him not even dying on time.

He's glad that Jackie won't realise that she wasted those extra moments with him. Better that he's the only one who feels like an idiot.

Still, he's seen his daughter all grown up, clever and beautiful. Even if he could have done more with the extra time, he hardly thinks it was wasted. 

* * *

><p>Title: The View Through Telefocus Lenses<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jack, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 69: Through the Looking Glass. Set during 'The Empty Child'.<p>

Jack stares through his binoculars at the flailing girl floating across the London sky and thinks that the Time Agency must have gone downhill a bit since he'd left. What sort of trained agent got herself into that much trouble?

Of course, he's completely charmed by her when she falls into his arms, literally, and says hello twice.

She dances with him and sighs quietly in his ear, and he can't help but like her after all.

He wonders whether it would be seen as complimentary or insulting if he tells her that her backside looks fabulous through telefocus lenses. 

* * *

><p>Title: A Different Sort of Prince<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rose, Jack  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 70: Magic. Set during 'The Empty Child'.<p>

Growing up, Rose used to imagine she was one of the beautiful princesses in the Disney films her Mum sat her in front of. There'd be princes, white horses, talking animals and _magic_, and she'd never have to be taunted for living on a Council Estate again.

She's rescued mid-fall by an invisible spaceship, her burned hands are fixed by glowing lights, and now she's slow-dancing with a gorgeous man beside a clock tower.

She thinks Captain Jack Harkness might just be a different sort of prince to what she'd expected, because all of this seems like magic to her. 

* * *

><p>Title: Alone, I Sacrifice Myself<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Harriet Jones, Rose, Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 101: Resolution. Set during 'World War Three'.<p>

Harriet watches this incredible alien explain to a nineteen-year-old London girl that he could save the world but lose her, with the connotation that that would be somehow worse than allowing the Earth to be destroyed.

Harriet's never really had anyone who cared that much about her, except maybe her mother, who barely even remembers her now. She supposes that's why she's the one who can ultimately make the decision.

She tells the Doctor to kill them with so much resolve in her voice that he can't possibly say no. Then she grips his hand in a cupboard and hopes. 

* * *

><p>Title: Ever the Reluctant Soldier<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 114: Pacifist. Set during 'The Doctor Dances'.<p>

The Doctor has been a soldier before. _The_ soldier, in the end. The only one left alive, if not quite standing, at the end of the war. But though he did his duty, and would do it again to save the universe, he hates the violence. He hates killing, even though he seems to be so very, very good at it.

Another war is being waged right in front of him, with Germans dropping bombs on London even now.

But he finds ways to cope. He lives through the warfare. Because sometimes there are days like today, where everybody survives. 

* * *

><p>Title: Still Living a Better Life<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jack  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 149: Resistance.<p>

He finds it odd that even after being left behind by the Doctor, he's still trying to live that life that he discovered when the Doctor and Rose took him in. He's learned too much to go back to being a conman, though. And he can't help but be moved by the plight of the Earth.

In the destruction after the Dalek attacks, a cruel budding dictatorship installs itself in the power vacuum. Jack finds himself stepping in to lead the Resistance.

If they're going to rebuild the Earth, he decides that they're damn well going to make it _better_. 

* * *

><p>Title: Looking Back<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 192: Forward. Set during 'Bad Wolf'.<p>

This is why the Doctor never looks back. And why he can never live a life where one day simply follows the next in chronological order. He knows intellectually that his actions have consequences, but to _live through_ the impact of what he does is sobering.

The Earth below is practically in ruins, and the Doctor is at least partly responsible for that. Things may have been wrong long before he'd arrived on Satellite Five the first time, but he's somehow made it indescribably worse.

He has to move forward, always forward, because looking back like this will break him. 

* * *

><p>Title: Some Mouthy Girl<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Nine, Amy  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 278: Child. Written pre-'Rose' for the Doctor (with references to that episode), and just a few months before the Doctor finally returns twelve years later in 'The Eleventh Hour' for Amy.<p>

Amy Pond. The name sounds innocuous, and her obvious youth (even for a human) is somewhat deceptive, but he's certain she's raving. She screeches like a Gymsha, has crazy eyes, and apparently enjoys imitating a nun; he hasn't been away from early 21st century Earth for so long that he's forgotten that real nuns don't generally stick their tongues down other people's throats.

Of course, Amy says _he's_ the insane one. She's right. She's not safe around him. No one is.

Stalking away, the Doctor vows that the next time some mouthy girl crosses his path, he's going to _run_. 

* * *

><p>Title: Premonitions You Could Live Without<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Nine, Harriet Jones, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 308: Bloom. Set sometime during Season 1, but also after 'The Christmas Invasion'. It's timey-wimey.<p>

After having missed 12 months, he's taking no chances with Rose on 21st century Earth; he's not keen on another slap. He convinces Rose to stay behind in the TARDIS momentarily while he checks things out. He's stunned she actually complies.

Harriet Jones seems to have long since passed the height of her leadership, which means they've arrived late. Again.

"It's you," Harriet breathes. "I mean, _you_ you. You've changed back."

He doesn't apologise as he retreats. He's not that kind of man. He wonders whether he will be in the far-too-near future when Harriet apparently meets a different Doctor.


	9. Assorted Ten Era Gen Drabbles

**Assorted Ten Era Gen **(everything gen set during Ten's reign, except those involving specific characters and relationships that have chapters of their own)

* * *

><p>Title: From the Inside<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 343: Unit. Set post-'Last of the Time Lords'.<p>

Martha doesn't know what to say when UNIT offers her a job. She's not sure she's in any fit state to be defending the Earth again quite yet; she's having enough trouble just pulling her own damaged family back together.

Still, she can't quite imagine going back to her old job, where no one knows or really cares what Martha Jones is capable of. She's better than that. She doesn't want to miss this opportunity.

When she sees for herself how UNIT is run, she doesn't change her mind about working for them. She decides she'll make _them _change instead.

* * *

><p>Title: Her World Away<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 63: Across the Universe. Set during 'The Stolen Earth'.<p>

"But that's my family. My whole world."

Donna thinks of her Mum and her Grandad, just getting up for the day, looking out the window to see the sunlight just vanish. They'll have minutes to live after that, at most. Just as long as the Earth's atmosphere could hold in enough heat to keep them alive. That can't possibly be long.

They might already be dead, and she's halfway across the universe from wherever they've ended up, unable to do a thing.

The Doctor will find a way to save them, she reassures herself. She can't stand to think otherwise.

* * *

><p>Title: A Place Revisited<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 330: Happy Place. Set sometime after Series 2.<p>

The Doctor watches the stingrays swimming through the air in front of a perpetual sunset. The planet revolves at the same rate as it orbits its sun, resulting in the illusion that the sun is always going down over this canyon. In a universe full of constant upheaval, this is one place that never seems to change.

That's why he returns here every so often, and why just the sight of it makes him incredibly happy and heartbroken at once.

He tells himself it has nothing to do with the fact that it was here that she promised him forever.

* * *

><p>Title: Through Their Eyes<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 318: Horde. Set sometimes during the Season 4 Specials.<p>

He likes to think that he sees the universe with new eyes every time he regenerates, so that things he's already seen have a new sort of gloss on them. It's not really true, though. He won't quite admit it to himself, with the loss of them all being so fresh, but he only really sees it afresh through his companions' eyes.

Without someone with him – a hand to hold – it's just another foreign sky, a spaceship like any other, yet another alien horde bent on claiming the universe as its own.

He's tired. He's alone. But he can't have them back.

* * *

><p>Title: Back in the Thick of Things<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 314: Fray. Set post-'The End of Time'.<p>

There's something oddly familiar about this pull she's feeling. It's a mad idea that she should be part of this. She can't figure out where that comes from, since she's obviously never been in this situation. But it's definitely there, hovering at the back of her mind, egging her on.

She's somehow always missed these moments in the past, but now that she _is_seeing it, she can't just stand and watch.

The world explodes in alien gunfire, and Donna Noble doesn't run away. She runs _into _the fray.

For the first time in months, things finally slip into place.

* * *

><p>Title: The Ones to Blame<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: The Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 311: Edge. Set during 'The Sound of Drums'.<p>

He's been teetering on the edge for so long that he's lost track of time. What are years to him, Time Lord or not? His life is all about the one-two-three-four beat, over and over, and counting the eternal repetitions of _that _would have sent him mad that much sooner.

He wonders what the Doctor, that lover of useless apes, would think about the fact that he only completely loses it finally after spending a lifetime as a human. They're so very weak. Of course he could never handled the drumbeat stuck like that.

It's the reason he punishes them.

* * *

><p>Title: Through Time and Space<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 306: Sail  Sale. Set during 'Planet of the Dead'.

The Doctor remembers a time when he'd been unable to just zip away to avoid responsibility. Stuck at UNIT, no matter how good he'd been at talking his way out of it, they'd still often managed to foist the dreaded _paperwork _onto him.

Now, however, he's not stranded in a job he barely tolerates. The TARDIS is just feet away, ready to sail off through time and space. Even UNIT realises there's no chance he'll stick around. He's got better things to do.

There's always someone else to deal with the clean-up. The Doctor thinks that Malcolm probably won't mind.

* * *

><p>Title: A Shift in Self-Definition<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten II  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 295: Disparate.<p>

The Doctor's always been considered abnormal. As a Time Lord, surrounded by his own kind, he'd been an outcast. As a Time Lord _without _other Time Lords, though, he'd been even more painfully unique. Even when he'd changed himself fully into a human to hide on Earth for a time, he'd still been considered noticeably odd.

Now he's something in-between – not quite Time Lord or human or anything else any universe has ever seen, for that matter – and as usual everyone can tell he's different (strange) the moment they meet him.

For the first time, though, 'different' doesn't mean 'alone'.

* * *

><p>Title: Saving Yet Another Life<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Young Wilf, Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 296: Dawn. Missing scene set at the conclusion of 'The End of Time Part Two'.<p>

The dawn light has barely risen when Wilfred Mott sees an enemy soldier rising from his cover.

This is it, he thinks. The moment. The time when he has to take his shot, as much as he wishes it wasn't so.

He aims, and pulls the trigger, but in that time another figure has barrelled into the soldier and knocked him down. The bullet sails past both of them harmlessly. Wilf's killed no one after all.

An objective observer would think that the Doctor has just rescued a complete stranger.

He has. But really, it's Wilf's life he's just _saved_.

* * *

><p>Title: Tiptoeing Down the Line<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 297: Flood. Set during 'The Waters of Mars'.<br>Warning: contains an over-abundance of metaphors. ;)

The Doctor had been balancing on the edge of sanity since the Time War. Or perhaps since he was young, much like the Master. He'd always seemed less stable than other Time Lords, after all. But still, even though he'd occasionally put a toe in the wrong direction, somehow he'd never quite fallen.

On Mars, though, a flood of water had swept him over the precipice into a sea of his own self-importance. He'd grinned and strutted and flaunted his power-madness.

It took a woman's death to push him back up safely onto that edge. He hated himself for that.

* * *

><p>Title: The Aristocrat's Path<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Reinette, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 257: Culture. Goes slightly AU during 'The Girl in the Fireplace', in that Reinette doesn't think of the fireplace straight away.<p>

He'd jumped on Arthur's back without thinking it through.

He'd realised he'd be stranded away from Rose. Reinette hadn't turned his head so much that he could ever forget about _her_, after all.

What he hadn't considered, though, was what it would be like stuck on the slow path. _This _slow path. The aristocrat's path.

They expected him to be a man of leisure, his only activity a constant progression of repetitive social events. He wasn't wired that way.

He'd go mad if he didn't get to face off with a dangerous alien race within the week.

Rose would understand.

* * *

><p>Title: An Age Undone<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten, Harriet Jones, Simm!Master  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 262: Epoch. Set during the end of Season 3.<p>

Harriet Jones's promotion to Prime Minister should have signified a long period of prosperity. Britain's Golden Age. Better wages, improved health care, and even a reduction in crime.

One spur-of-the-moment decision, though, and the Doctor allowed himself to forget that. She'd killed a retreating ship full of aliens, and the Doctor hadn't even weighed that atrocity against the good she could do, or considered that if she stayed in government he could teach her to do better.

He looked at Harold Saxon in power, and wished he'd remembered about that Golden Age then. It certainly wasn't going to happen now.

* * *

><p>Title: Damn Murphy's Law to Hell<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 227: Balustrade. Set during 'Voyage of the Damned'.<p>

Even on Earth in the 21st century, health and safety had been a huge concern. For other, more-advanced civilisations throughout the universe, by that point the anxiety was frankly ridiculous. The more societies evolved, the more ways they found to try to prevent themselves from dying.

The Doctor had long since accepted that those measures just never seemed to work when he needed them to.

So of course, on a top-of-the-line starship, none of the railings and other supports would do a thing to stop people from falling to their deaths into the engines.

Damn Murphy's Law to hell, anyway.

* * *

><p>Title: Who Wants to Live Forever<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: Simm!Master, Jack  
>Warnings: Implied torture<br>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 229: Encrypt / Decrypt. Set during The Year That Never Was, between 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'.

The Master wants to live forever. Funny. He knows just the man to ask how.

The Master treats Jack like a computer program. The only way to determine exactly how he works is to take him apart, reducing him to his components.

Computers don't scream, usually, but that just makes it more fun.

In the end, the Master can't quite figure out what makes Jack immortal. It's not something that can be reproduced, obviously. There's no essence of the Time Vortex stuck inside him, or anything so simple.

This conclusion doesn't stop him from playing around with Jack, of course.

* * *

><p>Title: Completely Irreplaceable<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Martha, Donna, Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 234: Fungible. Set during 'Smith and Jones'.<p>

He's glad, in retrospect, that Donna refused to come with him. It was far too soon after Rose, and knowing that the sounds of someone puttering about the kitchen weren't her, or that the nail polish left on the console belonged to someone else, would have broken him.

Even months later, he still hasn't recovered quite enough. Martha Jones, who impressed him so much on the moon, stands in his TARDIS looking expectant, and he has to make it clear.

Rose is completely irreplaceable. She always will be. He knows it isn't fair, but Martha has to just accept that.

* * *

><p>Title: Where They Always Take You In (Even When They Shouldn't)<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 206: Second Doctor Titles, using 'The Enemy of the World'.<p>

Planet Earth, especially around the 20th and 21st centuries, constantly looked to the Doctor to save them, be it from alien invaders or themselves. The Doctor loved that silly little planet. The TARDIS was _part_ of him, but Earth was still somehow _home_. So he always did attempt to help, and even managed to almost always succeed.

But what the humans didn't understand was that it wasn't necessarily a good thing that the Doctor loved their planet. Half of their alien problems only occurred because of the Doctor.

Torchwood had it right. The Doctor should be classified as the enemy.

* * *

><p>Title: Difference of Opinion<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Mickey, TARDIS  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 197: Green Day. Set between 'The Girl in the Fireplace' and 'Rise of the Cybermen'.<p>

"But you can't seriously like _Green Day_," the Doctor said.

"They're good," Mickey protested. "They're all political and sound awesome."

"No. The _Beatles _were political and incredible-sounding. Green Day can't carry a tune, and just sing whatever lyrics are handed to them."

For that, Mickey plays nothing but Green Day for a week straight. Even while he's sleeping, the music blares loudly. The TARDIS has apparently lent Mickey her speakers.

"If you try to tell me _you _like Green Day," the Doctor told the TARDIS, "I'll leave you somewhere to gather dust."

The TARDIS increases the volume out of spite.

* * *

><p>Title: The End of All Universes (The Return of His Own)<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 181: Portend. Set during 'Turn Left'  'The Stolen Earth'.

There are no two words that he reviles more in any language than 'bad' and 'wolf' when they're combined. They always foreshadow the end. The end of one of his lives was directly caused by the Bad Wolf. His entire universe as he knew it, wrapped around one young, oh-so-beautiful woman, happened on Bad Wolf Bay. Now it appears that the end of all universes is being predicted by those two words.

And yet, he does have a moment of complete selfishness. Bad Wolf means Rose has found a way back. Maybe he doesn't _completely _hate those words after all.

* * *

><p>Title: A Moment That's Been Coming<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten, Adelaide Brooke  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 189: David Bowie. Set during 'Waters of Mars'.<p>

Bowie Base One will be blown into space junk sometime in the next twenty-four hours. The Doctor knows what happens, and he knows he has to leave these people to their fates.

So why is he still here?

He begins to love Adelaide Brooke. It's like meeting a hero from a childhood story and finding that they're more impressive than you could have imagined. That just makes it even harder to leave.

When he snaps and decides to rescue them, he's not even surprised. This moment has been coming since his arrival. It doesn't even matter anymore that it's wrong.

* * *

><p>Title: Negative Reinforcement<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 157: Crime Does Not Pay. Set during 'The Stolen Earth'.<p>

There's screaming and panic all around, and people are staggering through the streets in either a dazed or drunken state. Or both, sometimes.

Rose hears smashing glass from behind her. Looters, she realises with disgust. At the end of the world, it's just like people to be out for themselves.

Sometimes she really does understand why her first Doctor called them all 'stupid apes'.

She strolls in, with her really rather impressive weapon, and sends the two blokes scurrying away.

Break into a shop, get a gun aimed at you. As negative reinforcement goes, Rose thinks it might just work.

* * *

><p>Title: Taking It Too Far<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Jack, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 132: Fair. Set during 'Utopia'.<p>

"Not if you're blonde."

Jack immediately regretted the words. Bringing up Rose when the Doctor was clearly hurting from being separated from her was a low blow. No matter what had happened between Jack and the Doctor, using Rose against him was wrong. It cheapened her.

"Oh, she was _blonde_!"

Jack looked away guiltily as Martha said that. He imagined that Martha had even less right to make a comment like that than Jack. Rose had been so much more than just some blonde. Martha hadn't even known her.

The Doctor snapped at them. Jack thought that they deserved it.

* * *

><p>Title: Hope for the Future<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Sally Sparrow  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 133: Reptile. Set during 'Blink'.<p>

They're off to deal with a violent lizard-like species of alien. If they don't stop it, the Earth may end today. Just another day travelling in the TARDIS, in other words.

He's stopped in the street by a young woman he's never seen before, but who clearly knows him. That's not particularly unusual for him. He often meets people out of order. It's a hazard of time travel.

What makes this day so different, though, is that the woman gives him something to look forward to. After the disaster they'd just been through in 1913, he thinks he needs that.

* * *

><p>Title: Phobia<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jack, Gwen, Ianto  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 128: Phobia. Set during 'The Stolen Earth'.<p>

Jack has died a lot of times. That year with the Master alone set some serious records. He's also died a lot of painful ways. That javelin was certainly no picnic.

But he hears shrieking metallic Dalek voices broadcast into the Hub, and just the sound of it sends shivers of terror through him, even though he knows logically that he'll survive them.

It's an irrational fear. A phobia. But even though he quickly thinks of Gwen and Ianto, who will stay dead if they're exterminated, for a few seconds all he can do is quake with fear for himself.

* * *

><p>Title: The Rest Should Stay Unwritten<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: John Smith, Joan Redfern, implied Ten/Rose and Ten/Reinette  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 129: Pen and Paper. Set during 'Human Nature'.<p>

Perhaps it hadn't been the best idea to put pen to paper and record his dreams.

The fanciful stories about aliens weren't the problem. It was, after all, just fiction.

No, it was the detail of a wild kiss shared with a young woman from a fireplace. It was the way he'd written about the feminine smell of Rose on his bedsheets, and the loving hand with which he'd sketched her face.

Anyone would think he was deviant.

He forgot about those things when handing the journal to Joan. In retrospect, he wished he'd never written them down at all.

* * *

><p>Title: Falling Down in the Mud<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: John Smith  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 95: Soldier. Set in a world that's AU after 'Human Nature''Family of Blood'. The Family died off before attacking, but because they weren't there John Smith refused to open the fob watch once he'd seen his possible future with Joan. This is set three years later. Yes, I'm a cruel, cruel woman.

He'd taught children how to shoot without thinking anything of it. Those same children were probably out there now, in the field of battle. _He_, a full-grown man, wished he was anywhere but there, even if it was for King and Country. He couldn't imagine how those young boys must have felt.

He took an unexpected bullet and fell down in the dark, mud splattering all over, including in the wound. He laid there, still.

He'd refused to become the Doctor again because he'd seen the wonderful human future he could have. He saw that future slipping away and cried.

* * *

><p>Title: Flying<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 123: Return to Flight. Set during 'The Next Doctor'.<p>

The Doctor isn't entirely sure why he chooses to use Jackson Lake's balloon to stop the Cyberking. There are probably easier ways to do it, really. The balloon could have been unpredictable. The Cyberking could have easily shot him down. Other things could have happened in the balloon that couldn't have happened if he'd taken two more seconds to get to the real TARDIS.

But the plan somehow works out, so the Doctor can't be too sorry. He's floating above London as if resting on a cloud. It's calming and exhilarating all at once.

He's flying, and he loves it.

* * *

><p>Title: A Colder Sort of Spring<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 106: Springtime. Set during 'Turn Left'.<p>

It's turning into spring out there. The frost is fading and the plants will start flourishing again, in some parts of England at least. But there are areas where plants may never grow again. Only a few months have passed since Christmas. Just a couple of months since London and its surrounds were torn apart by a nuclear weapon. The country, and the world, is still in mourning. Spring this year doesn't seem like a sign of new life, but rather a mockery of those that were lost.

Spring or no, Donna doesn't think she'll ever be properly warm again.

* * *

><p>Title: Circular Logic<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, River  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 97: Merry  Marry / Mary. Set during 'Forest of the Dead'.

The Doctor hates meeting people who already know him. It tends to seal him into a particular future. Changing personal timelines won't always risk a paradox, obviously, but he tends to meet people during important events that shouldn't be altered.

Now here's this woman, not quite ever actually saying it, but still silently conveying that they're married. And he wonders privately whether he would ever have considered her had he not met her now and known that it had to be so.

He hates to think that's the basis of what might be the most important relationship of his life.

* * *

><p>Title: Starting Over<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jackie  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 100: Fresh Start. Set during 'Love and Monsters'.<p>

People around the Powell Estate sometimes call Jackie a slag. She's been known to frequently take men into her bed, most of whom have been huge mistakes. Rose was only really following Jackie's example when she ran off with Jimmy Stone.

But all Jackie's hoping for is to start over. Twenty years after Pete, and she still hasn't managed that. So every time she meets a man like that nice Elton, she tells herself this might be it, and that she should do anything to hold onto it. Because she doesn't know how much longer she can take being alone.

* * *

><p>Title: Something Intangible<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 85: Phantom. Set during 'Midnight'.<p>

No matter how scary corporeal creatures are, they're never as completely and irrationally terrifying as the unknown.

These people, trapped in a bus with only a lack of forward propulsion and a few knocking sounds to let them know that something's amiss, couldn't possibly be more hysterical if confronted by a fleet of Daleks. Not that they'd even recognise a Dalek.

Something is outside, yes. Something they can't see. Something intangible.

Still, the Doctor hopes it stays unknown. He's not sure he wants to meet the type of creature hardy enough survive xtonic sunlight. It'd be nearly impossible to stop.

* * *

><p>Title: Shadows<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 86: Shadow. Set during 'The Forest of the Dead'.<p>

The shadows grow longer around the body, seeking him out. The Doctor, furious, gives them one chance to avoid the wrath bubbling inside him, looking for an outlet.

He'd _liked _Anita.

But he needs the Vashta Nerada to comply now, because he needs to get the people out of the computer. He needs to save Donna, most of all.

He hopes he's calmed down by the time the people are safely off the planet, because otherwise he might just consider blowing it out of the sky.

Messing with the people he likes isn't smart or safe, even for a shadow.

* * *

><p>Title: Detritus<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 91: Grave. Set during 'Planet of the Dead'.<p>

He'd said the sand tasted strange, and here was the answer to the riddle. People, whole cities, ecosystems – all reduced to sand. All across the planet, sand. Like detritus rotting on a forest floor, but somehow less fitting. At least when something was so obviously dead it was a testament to the fact that it lived in the first place.

All across the planet countless grains of sand are all that was left. The world was one big gravesite, but there wasn't a marker to be seen to note their passing.

It was one of the saddest things he'd ever seen.

* * *

><p>Title: The Luck of the Noble<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 77: Lucky. Set post-'The End of Time Part Two'.<p>

Donna had never been particularly lucky. She'd always had dodgy jobs. The only time she'd been with a man of means, the engagement had fallen through somehow, though the memory was blurred.

However, she's just married someone she loves, dirt-broke though he may be. And staring down in shock at a slip of paper she'd been affronted to receive as a wedding gift, she realises she's won the lottery. Literally. Triple-rollover and all.

They're rich. For once she really is lucky.

She does wonder, though, why her Mum and Grandad aren't more surprised when she calls them from the honeymoon.

* * *

><p>Title: A Flicker of Survival Instinct<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Donna, Sylvia Noble, Wilf  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 58: Chandler  Castellan. Set during 'Turn Left'.

They rolled candles each evening, hoping to sell them to gather enough money to eat. The reports said that electricity in Leeds would be completely gone in seven months. Surely there'd be a scramble for pre-made candles any day now.

Wilf disappeared into the other room to socialise and keep his spirits up. Donna and Sylvia toiled in near silence.

Donna stopped telling her mother of her schemes to improve things. There was nothing she could do.

Bursts of laughter drifted through the walls. Donna tried to focus on that and the motions of her hands instead of her despair.

* * *

><p>Title: Unwitting Recognition<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rose, Alt!Jackie  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 60: Anonymous. Set during 'Rise of the Cybermen'.<p>

Both of the times she's met her Dad, he's sort of recognised her without knowing why. He's treated her as special somehow, telling her things he wouldn't tell just anyone, giving her his keys without knowing her, that sort of thing. So it doesn't even occur to Rose that things might be different with her Mum.

Jackie Tyler treats her like some anonymous servant, and Rose very quickly catches on to just how far down the scale Jackie thinks anonymous servants are. Rose waits for an apology, but none comes. Rose means nothing to her.

She holds back her tears.

* * *

><p>Title: Unexpected Responsibilities<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 65: Consequences. Set during 'The Fires of Pompeii'.<p>

The Doctor doesn't often think too deeply about the causal consequences of travelling through established historical incidents. He figures he has a sense of what points are fixed, and that's a sufficient guide. It never occurs to him until it's staring him in the face that even though he knows what _has_ to happen, he doesn't always know _why_.

If he'd never come to Pompeii, Vesuvius would never have erupted and killed thousands. But the Earth would have become New Pyrovillia.

'Fixed point' doesn't mean that there's not a choice to be made. And it doesn't mean he isn't responsible.

* * *

><p>Title: Selfless<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 55: Wish. Set post-'Journey's End'.<p>

The snake-like species in front of him swayed hypnotically, waiting for his answer.

If the Doctor could wish for anything, what would it be?

He knew this creature could grant it, no matter what.

He could have anything.

He thought of Rose kissing a man who was him, but wasn't. He thought of Donna having forgotten him, but getting on with life. He thought of Martha, never turning down marriage proposals even when she should.

He could get them back.

"I wish that everyone who's ever travelled with me will lead happy lives," he said instead.

He didn't mention himself.

* * *

><p>Title: Three Against the Universe<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 43: 1  2 / 3. Set during 'Evolution of the Daleks'.

Even one Dalek is enough to kill off a population. The Doctor is uncomfortably aware that, even not including the hybrid that seems to be slowly coming around to a more human way of thinking, there are three full Daleks ready to spread forth across the Earth.

He hates that he can never be rid of them. And he hates even more that these are the exact Daleks that took Rose away from him.

Three Daleks; the end of their species. If he gets rid of them, it'll be genocide. Again.

But for these three, he can live with that.

* * *

><p>Title: The Whispers of Insanity<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Timothy Latimer  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 22: Whisper. Set during 'Human Nature'.<p>

There's always been something a bit wrong with Tim Latimer. Everyone around him becomes aware of it sooner or later, because he can't quite stop himself from saying the peculiar things that pop into his head. He's always just thought that somehow he was good at guessing, though.

But when he hears an inanimate object, a fob watch, _whispering _to him, he worries that the rest of it has just been a lead up to insanity after all. And when he sees fire and rage in the face of a lonely man, he thinks he knows what madness looks like.

* * *

><p>Title: Bravery in the Face of Terror<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, John Smith  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 23: Hero. Set during 'Family of Blood'.<p>

The Doctor remembers John Smith like a story. He knows all of what transpired during John's short time on Earth, and he even remembers the way John felt about things and people, like Joan. But he doesn't feel those things himself. It's like they've just been described to him after the fact.

Still, he can remember how terrified John was before opening the watch. He can remember that John saw all that he was giving up, and understood that he could choose to have those things. The Doctor thinks Joan was right to consider John a truer hero than himself.

* * *

><p>Title: Revenge<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: PG<br>Character/s: Luke Rattigan  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 34: Revenge of the. Set during 'The Poison Sky'.<p>

People have looked down on Luke Rattigan all his life. Even as they laud him as beyond a genius and provide him all the funding he could want, they look down their noses at him because they think he's just a spoilt child.

He's lived with that for a long time. He can take it.

What he can't live with, though, is having people (aliens, whatever) look down on his _intelligence_. The Sontarans think they can fool him and get away with it.

He's glad he gets to save the Doctor's life. But really, this is all about getting revenge.

* * *

><p>Title: Not Enough<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Rose, Mickey  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 37: Old Friends. Set during 'The Age of Steel'.<p>

Rose is far from ready to lose Mickey when it happens.

Their romantic relationship was over even before it really _was _over. She won't miss that as much as that casual closeness they'd always had when they were younger.

It's her fault he wants to leave now. Rose has always just tugged Mickey along for the ride without really taking into account his side of things. She feels terrible about that now that he's leaving, but there's no real time to say what Mickey deserves to hear from her.

She loves him, but it's not fair to make him stay.

* * *

><p>Title: Dancing in the Breeze<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: PG<br>Character/s: Jenny  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 38: Magic. Set during 'The Doctor's Daughter'.<p>

Jenny has no idea until now that gases can dance. Colours swirl together over her head like lovers squaring off to the music, an endless tango of life. Then they mingle, like the breath of Messaline's legends. And it's when they combine like that that the world around them flourishes.

Jenny's glad to have seen the formation of this new world before she dies. It gives her hope of things beyond ordinary life. The gases make their mark on the world, and it's just like magic. She thinks that dying isn't so scary after all if things like that exist.

* * *

><p>Title: Taking Sides<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Jack, Rose, Martha  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 39: History. Set during 'Utopia'.<p>

The Doctor thought that had Rose been there, with her intimate knowledge of his past with Jack, all hell would have broken out immediately.

He hated to think Rose might have chosen Jack's side, but he knew well enough how indefensible his actions were. And Rose had a history with Jack. She felt for him.

As Jack felt for her, apparently, if his account of watching her grow up was evidence. It felt petty to be jealous of Jack, but the Doctor couldn't quite help it.

For the first time, he was glad that Rose was no longer with him.

* * *

><p>Title: An Empty Past<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Jackson Lake  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 41: Haunted. Set during 'The Next Doctor'.<p>

There has never been a more than a moment that the Doctor considered wiping his memories of some of the more horrific moments in his life. Yes, they give him nightmares on the rare occasion he sleeps. And yes, it _hurts _almost unbearably to remember some of it. But those moments have shaped him. He doesn't know what he would be without them.

He looks at this man, who may or may not be his future, and sees just how much more _not_knowing haunts him. And the Doctor thinks that he was right never to inflict that upon himself.

* * *

><p>Title: Trading in Eternity<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Astrid Peth  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 4: Crossover  Cross Over. Set during 'Voyage of the Damned'.

Astrid remembered falling and falling, then someone telling her she was flying instead. Then there were stars, dazzling and oh-so-close she could almost reach out to them.

But she never could touch them. She could never touch anything again.

She'd quickly ascertained that she was dead, but she had trouble believing this was heaven. She loved the stars, really she did, but where was her mother? She'd always told herself that one day she would see that wonderful woman again.

Having the stars forever in exchange for never seeing those she loved; Astrid wasn't certain whether she liked the trade-off.

* * *

><p>Title: Refusing to Shelter From the Rain<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: G<br>Character/s: Ten, Original Character  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 14: Umbrella  Spire. Set sometime during the 2009 Specials.

The woman gaped at the Doctor, which looked all the more comical because her mascara had started running down her face, mingling with the streaks of rain. She wouldn't have that problem if she'd just get under the offered cover instead of looking at it like it was more alien than he was.

"It's just an umbrella," he coaxed.

"But you couldn't have fit that in your pockets."

They're dimensionally transcendent, of course, but he can't tell her that. She'd run screaming.

He misses having a companion. Relating to people who don't know anything about him is so much work.


	10. Assorted Eleven Era Gen Drabbles

**Assorted Eleven Era Gen **(everything gen set during Eleven's reign, except those involving specific characters and relationships that have chapters of their own)

* * *

><p>Title: Strange Incidents Aboard the TARDIS<br>Author: Queen of the Castle  
>Rating: PG<br>Character/s: Eleven, Amy  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 42: Mischief. Setting during Season 5, so vague spoilers may be present.<p>

At first the Doctor thinks that some creature having a laugh has somehow snuck aboard the TARDIS, like that time when the console room desktop theme kept turning orange. His towels disappearing every time he showers is inconvenient, not least because he has to trek back to his room in the buff.

Scans of the TARDIS reveal nothing on board which shouldn't be, however.

He really should have realised that the one other living thing that _is _on the TARDIS is just the sort to do this.

He hears her giggle when he's naked in the corridor and sighs.

"Amy!"

* * *

><p>Title: Picking Up Provisions<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eleven, Amy  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 56: Fisher. Set during Season 5.<p>

"You want us to go fishing?" Amy asked.

"Fish custard, remember!" the Doctor said, catching his rod momentarily against the TARDIS door as he bounded outside into the drizzle. "We're out of fish."

"Can't you just go buy some?"

"With what money?"

The Doctor looked back at her, eager-eyed, and gestured for her to follow.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Does this look like a fishing outfit?" she muttered.

Well, better to let him get it out of his system, she thought. She crossed her fingers for an alien invasion to get her out of a day otherwise spent in monotony.

* * *

><p>Title: Alone in the Light<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Amy, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 75: Light. Set during 'Flesh and Stone'.<p>

They kept leaving her. She should be worried for _them_, since they seem to have faded out of existence. It shouldn't bother her more that she's been left behind. She was nothing to them other than some girl they were protecting. It still does hurt, though. Because although she doesn't think the Doctor intended to leave her here alone by leaving without her, that's how she's ended up. She's alone, and the Angels are coming, and she can't even open her eyes.

She wonders whether, if that light reaches her, the Doctor will even recall that he left her behind.

* * *

><p>Title: To Make the World Right<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 102: Silence. Set during 'The Beast Below'.<p>

The girl cries silently. The Doctor wonders how even these terribly frightened people can stand to keep walking by. He can tell by their looks that they don't need to ask her what's wrong. Surely, though, that's not the only reason to stop. If they weren't so caught up in themselves, they might decide to comfort the girl.

They don't. But someone has to. And the greatest comfort, for a girl who can't cry out loud because of how wrong the world she lives in has gone, is obviously to make that world right again.

The Doctor's good at that.

* * *

><p>Title: His Still Clear Conscience<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Rory, Amy, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 111: Live and Let Live. Set during 'The Big Bang'.<p>

It took the power of Amy's mind, and the Doctor returning in the middle of his wedding reception, but Rory remembered.

Two thousand years. He remembered all of it, even though he'd never actually quite lived it.

He remembered being alone, with nothing to do but look after a cube with the woman he loved stored away inside.

Even more so, though, he remembered having to defend the box.

Rory Williams had never killed, no matter how hard they tried to beat him down to get to what he was protecting. He looked back at that now and was proud.

* * *

><p>Title: Helping People<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rory  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 117: Improbability. Set during 'The Hungry Earth'.<p>

Do I look like the police? Rory thought with a bewildered shake of his head.

Granted, to the little family, it must seem improbable that some random civilian would stroll out of something clearly labelled 'police' just after they'd called for assistance.

Rory found that, for once, he didn't really mind the mistake. He liked that someone might immediately look at him and see a person who could help. That was why he was so interested in medicine, after all.

The Doctor travelled the universe helping people. Put that way, Rory could see why Amy might never want to leave.

* * *

><p>Title: A Lingering Sense of Sadness<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Amy, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 127: Forgetful. Set at the end of 'Cold Blood'.<p>

Amy seemed ecstatic. She also seemed miserable.

The Doctor understood how the two could converge. He frequently felt a plethora of emotions at once. Things could get complicated that way.

What the Doctor couldn't quite understand was _why _Amy might feel unhappy.

There was something there, on the edge of the Doctor's consciousness. The Doctor, being a Time Lord, saw the world very differently to simple humans, but even he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He'd forgotten something that had made Amy terribly sad, and so had she. They'd _forgotten_.

That really couldn't be good, the Doctor thought.

* * *

><p>Title: Obvious Differences<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eleven, Craig Owens  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 130: Art. Set during 'The Lodger'.<p>

Every now and then, the Doctor received a glimpse of how he appeared to other people. Most of the time he didn't care. It was his way or the highway (well, the Time Vortex), and anyone who couldn't accept that didn't interest him long term. But, seeing multiple different species across the universe and travelling with assorted humans, sometimes it struck him how different he must appear to them.

"It's art," he claimed.

Craig didn't believe it for a second. To him, the Doctor must have seemed insane.

Sometimes, he wished there was someone out there who actually understood him.

* * *

><p>Title: Overpowering Disbelief<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Amy, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 142: Overwhelming. Set during 'The Eleventh Hour'.<p>

She's been waiting fourteen years for this moment. Fourteen years of other children snickering at her, and psychiatrists, and having to stay in Leadworth when she'd been so sure that she was getting out of there. The Doctor had offered to take her away. He'd told her five minutes. She'd stupidly believed it.

Fourteen years later, knowing how he lied, she's stopped believing almost everything he told her back then. But then she steps into the blue police box and sees how massive and strange it is inside.

She's overwhelmed. It's like magic, but it's also so real.

She laughs.

* * *

><p>Title: Memories of Past Mistakes<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Eleven, Amy, Adelaide Brooke  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 146: Riding. Set early during Season Five. References to 'The Waters of Mars'.<p>

The wind catches Amy's laughter as they cycle on a tandem bike across the planet's capital city.

The Doctor remembers the last time he'd suggested that bikes would be a good idea. Jogging along beside him, slowly becoming more and more entrenched in the thrill of the danger that dogged the Doctor's whole life, Adelaide had finally admitted that he'd been right about that.

He'd made Adelaide come around to his way of thinking in so many ways. That's what had caused her death, in the end.

Amy knows nothing of any of that. He vows never to tell her.

* * *

><p>Title: Not Quite What Was Expected<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Eleven, River  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 154: Marriage. Set sometime long after Season 5.<p>

When River Song whispered the Doctor's real name, he'd known that it meant that one day they'd be married. He didn't guess, though, that their marriage would be at gunpoint, with him feeling nothing but affectionate amusement for her.

She'd been flirtatiously running her hands over him, unheeding of his instructions to stop that already. The locals had arrested them for public lewdness and insisted they be married or executed.

He doesn't love her _like that_, but she's his best friend. He trusts her completely. So when the ceremony requires him to give her his name, he doesn't even hesitate.

* * *

><p>Title: Museums<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 174: First Doctor Titles, using 'The Space Museum'. Set during 'The Time of Angels'.<p>

Amy and River mocked him for his desire to visit the museums of the universe to see what had become of his past actions, but they didn't understand. He couldn't look back in on the people he tried to help directly, because seeing how their lives never went precisely the way he'd hoped was too depressing. It was easier when it was about artefacts, not beings.

Museums gave him distance, and perspective. They had a scale beyond the smaller picture of individual mediocrity.

Museums, unlike people, never made him wonder why he bothered travelling the universe in the first place.

* * *

><p>Title: A Foregone Conclusion<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Sally Sparrow, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 204: Nuts.<p>

"Hello, Sally Sparrow. I'm the Doctor."

"But... what? _The _Doctor? As in..."

"Impossible time travelling alien; that's me!"

"But I've seen the Doctor. You're nothing like him."

"I've changed a bit. It's a thing. Go with it."

"You're completely mad, aren't you?"

"So I've been told. Are you going to let that stop you?"

"Stop me from what?"

"From travelling with me, of course." The Doctor gestured to the TARDIS. "I swear it won't leave you behind this time."

Sally couldn't help but think, looking at him, that he _needed _her to say yes.

As if she'd say anything else.

* * *

><p>Title: Staying Constant<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eleven, Amelia, implications of Doctor/Rose  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 208: Bananas. Set during 'The Eleventh Hour'.<p>

He's eaten (and spit out) all sorts of foods, including an assortment of different fruits. He hasn't been able to try bananas, though. He asks for one, of course, but Amelia claims she doesn't have any. What sort of house doesn't stock bananas? Bananas are good.

Or are they still? He desperately wants to know whether these tastebuds are predisposed towards bananas. He's loved bananas for several bodies running now, and he hates to think that might change.

He's lost everything else. One thing staying constant would be nice.

And he'd shared his love of bananas with _her_. It's important.

* * *

><p>Title: The Curse of the Immortal<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jack, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 213: Watch.<p>

They both know what it's like to watch everyone they love slowly die as (or before) their time comes due. It's the curse of the immortal that they can do nothing _but _watch.

It's been years for both of them since they last met, but it's as if no time had passed. Neither of them has changed on the surface. Not recently, anyway.

Jack sees the devastated expression on the Doctor's face and knows immediately that he's back here, with Jack, because he's lost someone yet again. He's come back looking for something constant. Jack can give him that much.

* * *

><p>Title: Hormonal<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 244: Flummery. Set during 'The Eleventh Hour'.<p>

Custard. Fish fingers.

In previous lives, he recalls eating these things and, for the most part, not minding either. They were good foods in their own right. Now he finds that the combination, which would disgust any of his other bodies (and seemingly any sane human being, as well), is the only thing he can stand the taste of.

For the first time, the Doctor understands the odd cravings that human pregnant women seem to develop.

Then the Doctor realises he's equating this new body with a hormonal expectant mother. That can't be a sign of good things to come.

* * *

><p>Title: Taking His Chances<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rory, Amy, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 249: Quarantine. Set between 'Amy's Choice' and 'The Hungry Earth'.<p>

"No, no. Rory, you don't want to go in there. Amy's _very _contagious. We don't need two sick humans aboard the TARDIS. That would be just... no."

"I'm a nurse. I'll take my chances," Rory said, pushing past.

"If it's so contagious, how come _he _didn't get sick, huh?" Amy asked, her outrage punctuated by a sneeze. "And another thing..."

"Oh." Rory turned to the Doctor. "She's doing that thing, isn't she? Where she gets on a roll with her ranting?"

The Doctor smiled slightly. "I did try to give you an out."

"And someone better get me soup! _Pronto_!"

* * *

><p>Title: Swarming Like Bees<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 267: Pandemonium. Set during 'The Pandorica Opens'.<p>

An overwhelming number of his enemies swarmed in the sky like bees circling an impenetrable hive.

Those foes of his should have been attacking each other. They should have been picking each other off like flies, or like the Cybermen and the Daleks had when they'd met at Canary Wharf those many years ago. He should have been left with just one enemy to face, which he just might have been able to take care of.

That wasn't happening.

There was a word for this level of insanity: pandemonium.

Oh well, the Doctor thought. He'd always worked best under pressure.

* * *

><p>Title: A Nation or a Universe (The Decisions of Men in Power)<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Eleven, Winston Churchill  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 294: Panjandrum. Set during 'The Victory of the Daleks'.<p>

As human leaders throughout time went, Winston Churchill wasn't the worst of them. Not by a long shot. However, the man still had the ability to drive the Doctor nearly insane with his obvious self-importance.

"This isn't just about Great Britain," the Doctor tried to explain. "The Daleks could destroy the whole Earth. The whole universe!"

Churchill just shook his head irritably. "I'm charged with the protection of my nation, Doctor. I can't care about the rest of it now."

Humans in power and their lack of foresight. The Doctor gritted his teeth and resolved to fix the problem himself.

* * *

><p>Title: That Instinct Towards Destruction<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 307: Charge. Set during 'Victory of the Daleks'.<p>

Even after all this time dealing with human violence, he still can't even begin to comprehend it. The human race, or Great Britain more specifically, has once again laid hands on alien technology and decided that the best way to use it must be to kill their fellows more efficiently. Humans are about so much more than bloodshed, hatred and warfare; he knows that. But sometimes the Doctor watches them destroy themselves and wonders.

The Daleks are on Earth again, and Churchill's instinct is to charge into battle with them. The Doctor hopes he can stop all this in time.

* * *

><p>Title: The Decision to Fall<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: River, Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 316: Vacuum. Set during 'The Time of Angels'.<p>

River can't imagine not being able to do this. Not being able to make the choice to fall, knowing that she'll be caught.

She flings herself away from immediate danger into the vacuum of space, knowing there's no real danger for her _there_. She doesn't even have to gasp for air. He steps in at the exact moment that she needs him to.

She falls onto him, catching how shocked that makes him look, and knows immediately that for him it's once again early days.

Yet even now, he's always there for her. Even if he doesn't know why yet.

* * *

><p>Title: Part of a Pair<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eleven, TARDIS  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 327: Wildlife. Set sometime after Series 6.<p>

The Doctor finds himself companionless, but certainly not alone.

She might no longer be a woman with wild hair and even wilder mannerisms, who would kiss him in the same breath as cursing him, but he knows his TARDIS is still the same underneath. When he talks to her, she understands him, even if it's in a very different way to how a human companion (or even he himself) understands words and concepts.

All she can do is hum at him, but that's all right. It's enough to remind him that he's never alone as long as he has her.

* * *

><p>Title: The Blank Slate of Humanity<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Eleven  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 332: Space Race. Set around 'Day of the Moon'.<p>

He'd always wondered why humans were so obsessed with their moon. It's just a lifeless rock orbiting their planet, and there are so many more interesting things out in the depths of space.

He supposes he shouldn't be surprised that it's an alien plot, in the end. He's never met a race more willing to cede control to others than humans. It's enough that he wishes he could step in and...

But that would make him no better than the Silence, or the Daleks, or any of the other would-be conquerors.

He treads too close to that darkness as is.


	11. Assorted Other or Multi Era Gen Drabbles

**Assorted Other or Multi Era Gen **(everything gen featuring Doctors other than Nine, Ten and Eleven and/or their companions, except those drabbles involving specific characters and relationships that have chapters of their own)

* * *

><p>Title: The Benefits of Humans<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Four, Adric.  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 53: Nonsense. Set during the Tom Baker era.<p>

The Doctor sometimes thinks that humans are more trouble than they're worth. They're so emotional that he's surprised they don't explode, and they're always talking complete and utter (though often wonderful) nonsense.

Now that there's only himself and Adric stuck together aboard his suddenly not-quite-big-enough ship, though, he misses human companions. There's only enough room on the TARDIS for one overly-logical know-it-all.

He thinks it's a crying shame that it would be considered unacceptable to just push Adric out onto the next inhabited planet and leave him there.

Though he'd probably miss having someone else to do all the prattling. 

* * *

><p>Title: The Black Sheep Painted White<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Eight (mentions of Three and Six)  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 76: Lost Causes. Set during the Time War. References multiple Classic Who eras.<p>

After his stint stranded on Earth in his third body had ended, he'd thought the Time Lords had given up on him, figuring there was no changing him. Then he'd been called back to trial and put through another regeneration. He realised he was still the black sheep, but they were willing to try painting him white when they saw fit.

So he wasn't surprised they'd called him back to Gallifrey with the rumblings of a War spreading. It suited them to make an effort with him again, and yet again he'd come running. He really should stop doing that. 

* * *

><p>Title: Peace Babies<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Four  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 79: Peace. Set during the Tom Baker era.<p>

For a man who goes about getting into (and sometimes causing) trouble on a massive scale, the Doctor really abhors violence and fighting. War is the dirtiest word imaginable to him, and he hates that it's often a necessary evil.

He's violently dispatched enemies before, of course. It's a necessity to save the universe sometimes. Someone has to save all those unsuspecting creatures. But in the end, he's still the sort to gallivant around time and space offering peace in the form of a sugary sweet from a little planet called Earth.

"Jelly baby?" he offers with a toothy smile. 

* * *

><p>Title: Born Under the Wrong Suns<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Theta Sigma  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 94: Prodigy.<p>

In any other place in the universe, Theta Sigma would be considered a prodigy. But Gallifrey is all about book-learning and emotional detachment. He loves books, really, but he's not so fond of tests; he can barely sit still for them. As for the emotional detachment, that's a lost cause. He loves the universe without ever having seen it. Once he's out there, he's going to dive in headfirst.

The Time Lords don't know what to do with him. To them he's anything but a genius. He's a failure, if anything. Theta tries not to let that get to him. 

* * *

><p>Title: True Warfare<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Eight, Nine  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 248: Bivouac. Set during the Time War.<p>

He stands on his TARDIS, about to end the war with a simple press of a button. It feels like there should be mud and spilt guts and lack of shelter for this to amount to true warfare. Without that, it would seem easy for him to distance himself from the imminent deaths.

But the responsibility is as heavily his as if he were killing them face-to-face. Someone has to remember the horror, and he'll be the only one left.

The button is pushed.

They all die. Only he's reborn.

He remembers every second of the fire engulfing them all. 

* * *

><p>Title: Through Until the End<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: The Doctor, Jack  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 255: Comfort.<p>

It's somehow appropriate that the only person who will bear witness to the end of the Doctor's long life is Jack. They've both affected each other's existence in so many ways that the Doctor can't begin to describe them.

Jack sits with the Doctor as he bleeds out. The Doctor takes Jack's hand and squeezes weakly.

It's the Doctor who's dying, and yet he feels like he should be doing the comforting here. After all, it's the people who have to live on who feel the real pain of death. And Jack has such a long time still to live. 

* * *

><p>Title: Anywhere But Here<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Theta Sigma  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 256: Greek Alphabet. Set pre-series.<p>

He's never been accepted by his people. He's different, and therefore wrong. He wonders that they can't see how that makes them just like those legends his teachers tell of the Daleks.

The others at the Academy laugh at the fact that the crèche cared so little for determining his personality that two letters in Old Earth Greek were considered an appropriate name.

He dreams of leaving them behind. Perhaps that planet and time period from which his name originated will accept him. Or another time and place.

Theta Sigma just knows that he wants to be anywhere but _here_. 

* * *

><p>Title: The Upper Hand of a Twisted Arm<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Eight  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 264: Third Doctor Titles, using 'Inferno'. Set during the Time War.<p>

The Time War had raged for too long, and everyone involved was aware of it. The Time Lords had come up with an option to end it that the Doctor couldn't abide. The Doctor had a plan that the Time Lords railed against with every atom of their beings. It should have created a stalemate, but it didn't.

The Doctor had the upper hand. He was just one man; not an easy target within the whole of time and space.

He acted.

Everything inside the Time Lock disintegrated, accompanied by the screaming of the universe setting itself right. Gallifrey burned. 

* * *

><p>Title: An Enemy in Common<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: The Doctor  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 282: Predicate.<p>

He's _the Doctor_. He's the last of a powerful species of overseers who had the ultimate authority over the universe. The Doctor didn't always agree with the Time Lords about everything, but he never questioned that they had rights and dominion over the progression of time. Now that authority falls to him alone.

So when he declares that the war on Gavrox IV will end that night, he expects that they will listen.

The war does end, then, but only because the factions have found a common enemy; the alien who tries to assert himself over them.

The Doctor flees. 

* * *

><p>Title: Letting History Play Out<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Ten, Five  
>Author's Notes: Written for Challenge 303: Crash. Set during 'Time Crash'.<p>

He looks at his fifth self, who has just recently lost Adric. He thinks he knows grief. He's seen nothing yet.

The Doctor considers warning his younger self of what is to come. Of preventing himself from being alone, the only Time Lord, with Gallifrey having burned years ago and the Master having died in his arms just yesterday.

But then, he might miss out on meeting Rose Tyler, and Martha Jones, and Peri and Ace and all those wonderful people he's loved over the years.

He can't do that, but he still wishes he could spare himself the pain. 


	12. Assorted Drabbles Written in Late 2012

Title: Silent Stalker  
>Rating: PG<br>Characters: Rose, Nine  
>Prompt: Challenge 371: Armour.<br>Author's Notes: AU pre-Rose.

Rose's Mum always warned her about men like him. 'Stalker', she'd call him. Bad news.

But though he usually just skulked after Rose at a safe distance, the leather jacket he wore like armour blending into the shadows, today he'd made actual contact, swooping in and rescuing her when her head was so up-in-the-clouds she hadn't even noticed an oncoming car. He'd stared down at her, then, his grip on her as intense as what lurked in his blue eyes, before he'd just up and walked away.

Her Mum wouldn't approve, no, but that hardly mattered; Rose was interested now. 

* * *

><p>Title: Alter Ego<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: DoctorRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 372: Pattern.<br>Author's Notes: An AU where the Doctor and Rose are Gotham City citizens. I'd call it crackfic, but this is probably exactly what the Doctor and Rose's version of domestic bliss would be like.

The building shook, as if something nearby had exploded.

"Oh, _again_?" Rose asked, sighing.

He ducked his head out the window. "Looks like. The Bat Signal's up and all."

"I'm sensing a bit of a pattern here."

"Yep. If this keeps up, the only ones left alive in Gotham will be the idiots in masks. We might have to join in out of self-preservation. What d'you think? I could dress like a mad scientist and call myself 'The Doctor'."

"And how would that be different from your average day, exactly?"

Damn. He thought he'd managed to hide the lab coat. 

* * *

><p>Title: Beautiful Girls Wearing Nothing But Pearls<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: RoseTen  
>Prompt: Challenge 373: Itch.<br>Author's Notes: The title is a quote from The Producers, so credit goes there.

"Um... what's this about?"

Rose thought there was only really the one explanation for draping herself out like a gift, wrapped only in tiny scraps of lace and strategically-placed rose petals.

She'd known the Doctor was a bit thick about these things, but come on. She'd hardly gone for the subtle approach here.

Before she could get any _more_ obvious about what she wanted, though, the Doctor — flustered as a teenage virgin — made some excuse and hurriedly retreated from the bedroom. Alone again, Rose groaned.

Honestly, what did a girl have to do to get her itches scratched around here? 

* * *

><p>Title: Always Prepared<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: RoseTen  
>Warning: Sexual references<br>Prompt: Challenge 374: Depth.

Rose's Mum insisted under pain of death that she always carry protection, resulting in Rose rolling her eyes and shoving several foil wrappers into the depths of her wallet (never to be seen again, she'd thought).

"Wait, you got a condom?" Rose breathed.

"Course I do... ah, somewhere. Just... might need a few minutes to search the TARDIS. Or an hour or two... or five." The Doctor made a piteous whining sound.

Snickering, Rose reached for her wallet, picturing the Doctor's face when she mentioned later precisely who he should thank for saving him from all that tortorous sexual frustration. 

* * *

><p>Title: Relatively Speaking<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rose, Ten<br>Prompt: Challenge 376: Compass.

"Did I miss some reason why today's special?" Rose asked.

The Doctor looked remarkably self-satisfied. "Well, every day's special, obviously, but this one's more so. According to the Universal Time Compass, it's the four hundred and thirteenth day, relatively speaking, since you jumped into the TARDIS. That just so happens to be the accepted average length of a year."

"Oh. So this would be our... anniversary?"

"A year together today." He sounded incredibly pleased at the thought.

That he'd remembered at all would have been gift enough, but the Doctor also had _plans_.

Rose barely stopped grinning the entire day. 

* * *

><p>Title: Stuck With You<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: TenRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 377: Paint.<br>Author's Notes: An AU where the Doctor is a struggling artist turned art school teacher and Rose is his student.

He'd wanted to be out traversing the globe, pursuing new inspiration with which to transform his canvasses. Unfortunately, reality said a man could only live on a shoestring for so long.

He'd expected to hate teaching, a distant second choice career-wise. The truth was rather surprising.

Rose Tyler glanced past her easel, looking at him not to seek approval — student or not, she was far too independent for that — but as if sharing something with him.

What he saw in her eyes was _real_ art.

Perhaps being shackled to one place for a while might be worth it after all. 

* * *

><p>Title: Behind a Flimsy Door<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: RoseNine, Rose/Jimmy Stone  
>Warnings: Sexual references, infidelity<br>Prompt: Challenge 381: Rock.  
>Author's Notes: AU pre-Rose, though it's not specified how AU. Could just be timey-wimey.<p>

Rose apparently couldn't resist the temptation of this mystery man, so utterly different from the useless boyfriend she often found herself hating. She wanted the _escape_ he was offering too much to stop herself, even with Jimmy right on the other side of paper-thin walls, and with nothing except the repetitive thump of party music spurting from ridiculously large speakers to cover the noise of Rose's hips rocking back against the bathroom door.

Rose clung to his leather jacket, whispering words of love to a relative stranger, and wondered if it was still cheating if she wanted to be caught. 

* * *

><p>Title: Sworn Enemy<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: DoctorRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 403: Bête Noire.<br>Author's Notes: An AU where the Doctor is a Jedi, and Rose is a crazy Sith Lord. Contains mentions of the Master and nods to 'The Parting of the Ways'.

There are legends of horned devils and physically warped men, all seething visibly with Darkness. That's how he'd always expected the Sith to appear.

Not like _this_.

Seeing her, he understands, finally, why his Master always called the Dark Side 'seductive', even long before the man stared directly into its depths and fell to the drumming lure of power-lust.

Her eyes burn gold with that same tainted power, making her look almost unbearably beautiful in her terrible madness.

He is Jedi. He's supposed to ignite his lightsaber and battle her.

Instead, he just wants to reach out and save her. 

* * *

><p>Title: Time-time-e-dy-wimey<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: RoseNine  
>Prompt: Challenge 414: Gilbert &amp; Sullivan.<br>Author's Notes 1: Crack! Basically this is a take on my fic 'Kissing Complete Strangers' if it were done as a drabble musical. So this probably won't make sense unless you're at least passingly familiar with that series. Intended to mirror the 'temporary goodbye' tone of and (somewhat loosely) set to the tune of 'Chim Chim Cher-ee (Rooftop Duet)' from Mary Poppins (the stage musical). Supposedly this is a Bert the Chimney Sweep/Mary Poppins AU, but I sort of stretched the meaning of that prompt to its limits.

ROSE:  
>Oh Doctor, oh Doctor, I've found you at last,<br>I've searched for you in every universe past.

DOCTOR:  
>Not quite complaining, but what's with the kiss?<br>'Cause I don't often greet complete strangers like this.

ROSE:  
>Time-time-e-dy-wimey, our life's a real mess.<br>You clearly don't know me yet, sorry (I guess).

DOCTOR:_(suggestively)_  
>We could set that right before you go back.<p>

ROSE:  
>Oi! Better watch it or you'll get a smack.<br>But if in your future you still want some fun,  
>Just reach out your hand and don't forget to run!<p>

ROSE AND DOCTOR:  
>Time-time-e-dy-wimey.<br>Whoops, better hang on! 

* * *

><p>Title: New Hire<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: NineRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 417: Hair.<br>Author's Notes: An AU where the Doctor is a sailboat captain and Rose is a deck hand.

The glint of sunlight against blond hair inevitably caught the Captain's eye again. The girl had been difficult to ignore ever since she'd been hired. Of course, he maintained that was just because he had to keep correcting her.

"Tyler!" He grabbed her hands — so soft — and noted they were already reddened. "Don't let me catch you dealing with the ropes without wearing gloves again," he snapped.

"Aye Captain," she teased, flashing her tongue.

Somehow, he couldn't quite bring himself to berate her for her cheek.

He was going to regret bringing this one on board, he just knew it. 

* * *

><p>Title: Making a Move<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: TenRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 364: Touch.<p>

The Doctor was always so sure of himself, frequently to the point of overconfidence... except here.

In this he hesitated, his hand hovering just inches over her back, seemingly unwilling to breach the gap. When it became obvious he wouldn't make that first move, Rose reached back herself, her fingers brushing momentarily across his, and flicked her wrist in a practised motion. The Doctor went so wide-eyed at the sight of her bra falling away that Rose almost felt she'd bared far more than just her breasts.

From there it wasn't overly difficult to convince him to properly touch her. 

* * *

><p>Title: The Rainbow Serpent<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: DoctorRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 368: Colour.<br>Author's Notes: An AU based on a Dreamtime story. My apologies to the Australian Aboriginal culture for badly misusing one of their legends.

He slithers across the land in desperate search of something — someone — to call home. But he's alone; always alone.

Until her.

Something in him recognises her. He squirms around her, a dance older than time, flashing his scales invitingly, each segment catching the colours of the setting sun.

Yet she still rejects him the first time he asks.

But not the second.

The second time she leans her body up against him, their bodies cutting so deep as they intertwine that mountains and rivers form, meandering around them.

A world forms in their wake, but they only notice each other. 

* * *

><p>Title: Environmental Factors<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: RoryAmy  
>Prompt: Challenge 370: Beat.<br>Author's Notes: An AU where Rory is a Kiwi and Amy is a fruit bat.

The forest around him is slowly being destroyed, and he doesn't know how to outrun it. He's stuck here, destined to scuttle along the ground, only able to watch as those more fortunate fly above.

He can't stop watching _her_ in particular, wishing he could join her up there. She swoops through the air, always out of reach.

He beats his tiny wings uselessly. Maybe she'd finally notice him if he could fly alongside her. But she never sees. She can't.

She can leave whenever she likes. He has no way to keep her, and he can't go with her. 

* * *

><p>Title: In the Doghouse<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: RoseTen II  
>Prompt: Challenge 375: Crotchety.<p>

"Rose? Can I sleep here? The couch is _really_ uncomfortable, and I'm still not sure why you would've told me to sleep there anyway. Unless something's wrong with the bed, I suppose. Rose?"

Rose tiredly cracked an eye open. "Nngh. You still haven't quite got this whole 'human customs' thing down, have you? Honestly, I'm too tired for this, so fine. But we're going to have a _conversation_ tomorrow," she warned.

Sliding into bed behind her, the Doctor kissed her shoulder appreciatively. Despite her earlier annoyance that had relegated him to the couch, Rose had to bite back a smile. 

* * *

><p>Title: The Sanity of the Plan is of No Consequence<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Ten, Simm!Master<br>Prompt: Challenge 380: Trifle.  
>Author's Notes: The title is a quote from Captain America (the movie), so credit goes there.<p>

It took a great deal to stun the Doctor into complete speechlessness, especially in this particular regeneration.

In this case, however, he had to say his shock was definitely warranted.

When he finally managed to articulate himself, he blurted out, "You managed to take over an entire galaxy in the space of three relative days using only a bowl of trifle."

"I know," the Master said with a disgustingly self-admiring smirk. "Clearly there is no end to my ingenuity and brilliance."

The Doctor got the distinct impression he would be hearing about this 'accomplishment' for the rest of their lives. 

* * *

><p>Title: Under the Ski Masks<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: RoseRiver  
>Prompt: Challenge 390: Strength.<br>Author's Notes: An AU where Rose and River are bank robbers.

Thanks to minimal resistance and River's always-brilliant timing, they're out with their haul before the sirens near.

It's amazing, Rose decides, what the judicious use of a couple of massive guns can accomplish. Suddenly, after usually being spared barely a glance except to wolf-whistle at their entwined hands, they both become such a threat that people let themselves be forced face down on the ground without any struggle.

It isn't the masks and excessive show of force that are the illusion, though; they're both always that formidable. It just apparently takes a bank heist for everyone else to see that. 

* * *

><p>Title: Things That Speak As Loud As Words<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: TenRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 398: Rumour.<p>

It's in grasping fingertips and the warm kiss of palm against palm. It's in the close press of bodies wrapped up in hugs that are supposed to be merely comforting, friendly or celebratory, but end up as something far more. It's in eyes that can't be dragged away for long, because even with a whole universe of sights at his disposal, there's simply nothing he'd rather be looking at.

Every beat of his hearts proclaims it. She must know, or at least suspect.

And yet still he can't say the words aloud.

She has too much power over him already. 

* * *

><p>Title: Full Circle Again<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: RoseTen  
>Prompt: Challenge 402: Abandon.<br>Author's Notes: AU where Ten goes back and visits Rose before she met him, only he stays a little while longer than he should. And then...

Tears flowed steadily. "What are you sayin'?" Rose asked.

"You already know," the Doctor said gently. "You wouldn't be crying otherwise."

She did. She'd always known that he'd be leaving her soon enough. But she'd still like to have lived in denial a little longer.

She just wanted him to _stay_. Was that too much to ask?

"This can't be the end, just like that."

"It's not really," he said. "For you, it's just the beginning."

He'd told her no promises at the start, but that sounded suspiciously like one.

She ceased crying, choosing to believe it.

Believe in _them_. 

* * *

><p>Title: What's So Special About Today?<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: RoseTen  
>Prompt: Challenge 404: Confusion.<p>

The Doctor knew everything important (and some things that weren't) that happened on some rainy July day eight centuries ago. But when the TARDIS stubbornly refused to move from _this_ day, he ruffled his hair in confused annoyance.

True, the reconstructed building they were parked outside no longer housed Henrik's, and the Doctor rarely got his dates quite right. But it still would've been nice, Rose thought wistfully, if he were the kind of man to recognise how the TARDIS had purposely brought them to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the night they'd met.

Good thing she loved him regardless. 

* * *

><p>Title: The Right Time<br>Rating: PG-13  
>Characters: NineRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 405: Retro.<p>

He wouldn't sleep with her. Not yet.

"I don't want to be another of those fumbling human boys you've been with, barely pausing long enough to find their zipper when you're all laid out and wanting more. I'd rather get it _right_."

Rose knew that it didn't have anything to do with him not wanting her desperately enough. She could tell he did; there was a kind of hunger in his expression sometimes when he looked at her.

This 'waiting' idea was pretty old-fashioned by 21st human standards, but Rose suspected he only insisted on it because he loved her. 

* * *

><p>Title: Crazy's the Only Game In Town<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: Rose, Ten<br>Prompt: Challenge 409: Chicken.  
>Author's Notes: The title is a quote from Supernatural, so credit goes there.<p>

"I'm so gonna kill you when we get out of this," Rose muttered as she clapped without rhythm.

"That's the spirit. Blend in." The Doctor clucked like a chicken. "Only you should yell it so they can _hear_ you sounding properly psychopathic."

Rose was moving pointedly towards the TARDIS in something like an over-caffeinated linedance. "Are you kiddin'? _You_ scream at the unstable lunatics."

Honestly, Rose was acting like he'd _meant_ to land in a colony where all sane-acting people were locked away for being 'chronically boring'.

Though personally, he actually wondered if there might be something to that idea. 

* * *

><p>Title: Oblivious, As Usual<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: RoseNine  
>Prompt: Challenge 411: Hawk.<br>Author's Notes: An AU where the Doctor is a restauranteur and Rose is a baker.

He's circling like a hawk, barking out orders and sending kitchen staff scurrying. When Rose arrives at the restaurant with the dessert trays, he spares a brief grin, then goes straight back to prepping for open.

He's out of sight before he can spy the 'I love you' scrawled in icing on the banana cake — his favourite. Rose sighs, unsurprised. Business as usual, then.

It's not that he doesn't notice her; she sees him looking sometimes.

It's just that no matter what she does to convince him, it doesn't seem to occur to him that she could want him too. 

* * *

><p>Title: Someone Else's War<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jackie<br>Prompt: Challenge 412: Warning.

It seemed so deceptively calm up there, Jackie thought as she stared at the pinpricks of light in the dark sky.

Her daughter was out there somewhere among those stars, undoubtedly risking her life, stupidly fighting someone else's fight. She could be stumbling through the mud in the middle of an honest-to-goodness war right at this moment, for all Jackie knew.

Every time Rose left, saying goodbye broke Jackie's heart, knowing each time it was a little less likely Rose would ever return home.

She wondered whether the Doctor would at least come warn her that she should stop waiting. 

* * *

><p>Title: When She Comes By<br>Rating: G  
>Characters: TenRose  
>Prompt: Challenge 420: Gallery.<br>Author's Notes: An AU where the Doctor is a shoe designer at high end boutique and Rose is his best client.

She's down in the gallery again, surveying his newest stock.

He nearly topples off the ladder when he notices her, grabbing the rung to stop himself, though not managing to prevent the shoebox he'd been reaching for from falling on his head.

She looks up at him and grins. He nearly falls again.

There's a camera flash — probably for another puff piece on the Vitex heiress's shoe addiction. He thinks wryly that he'll probably buy the magazine just for her picture despite knowing the article attached will be complete rubbish.

There's clearly so much more to her than they know. 

* * *

><p>Title: Everyone Leaves Home in the End<br>Rating: PG  
>Characters: Jackie<br>Prompt: Challenge 421: Squash.  
>Author's Notes: Set during 'The Parting of the Ways'. The title's a quote from 'The Impossible Planet'.<p>

Jackie squashed the knowledge that she was probably partly to blame for this; stubborness was apparently genetic. Not that it was doing _her_ much good, as she forced herself to go fetch the big yellow truck.

Jackie had never foreseen that she'd willingly help her daughter put herself in danger. But she'd certainly never seen the Doctor coming either. The best laid plans crumbled to so much dust with him about.

She only prayed that he'd manage to keep magically scraping himself and Rose out of trouble, since it didn't seem those two would ever stop bumbling into danger together.


End file.
